Satisfaction of mortgage
The recorded instrument stating that a mortgage has been paid and its lien discharged.
The satisfaction is the least glamorous instrument in the index and the one that most separates careful debt data from careless. It also carries its own signal: a satisfaction recorded with no new mortgage behind it is an owner deleveraging: free-and-clear equity forming in public view, one filing at a time.
What the record actually contains
- Reference
- The recording information of the mortgage being discharged, the linkage that resolution depends on.
- Party
- The current holder executing the discharge; after assignments, not the original lender.
- Recorded date
- When the discharge entered the record, the date a stack stops counting the loan.
Jurisdiction notes
Recording speed varies widely. Some counties see satisfactions within days of payoff, others within months, and lender diligence varies more than county practice. New York CEMAs complicate matters: a “satisfied” loan may have been consolidated into a live one rather than truly retired.
Satisfactions close positions in the capital stack. A discharged loan drops out the day its satisfaction resolves; a stack that never retires anything is how vendors make clean buildings look levered.
See your market.
Twenty minutes on the live terminal.