🔑 NY RPAPL 341: Recitals as to Heirships in Conveyances

Questions of heirship and survivorship often arise long after a conveyance has been executed, when witnesses are gone and direct proof is difficult or impossible to obtain. In New York, RPAPL 341 addresses that evidentiary problem by assigning legal weight to certain recitals contained in older recorded instruments.

The Statutory Rule

§ 341. Recitals as to heirships in conveyances

Hereafter, in any special proceeding or action in any of the courts of this state, any deed, mortgage, lease, release, power of attorney or other instrument more than ten years old, executed for the purpose of transferring the title to or interest in lands, tenements or hereditaments situated within this state, which contains recitals that the grantors, grantees, or either, or both, are the heirs at law of a prior owner of the title or interest described in said instrument, or a survivor of a tenancy by the entirety or joint tenancy, shall be presumptive evidence of said heirship, or of such survivorship, as therein recited, if such instrument be duly acknowledged or witnessed and proved in any manner required or permitted at the date of the execution thereof, and be duly recorded in any county where any part of the lands described therein shall be located, or duly recorded in the office of the secretary of state of the state of New York.