Definition
A recital phrase used in deeds and other conveyancing instruments to flag a prior instrument in the chain of title that has not yet been entered into the public record. When a grantor references an earlier deed, mortgage, or other conveyance that is still unrecorded, the phrase "intended to be recorded" is inserted to acknowledge the gap and signal that recordation is anticipated. The phrase operates as a placeholder in the chain of title and, in at least one jurisdiction, carries legal consequence as an implied covenant.
---
Common Confusion
"Intended to be recorded" is sometimes read as a mere formality or throat-clearing language — a descriptive note that a deed exists but has not yet been processed. In Pennsylvania, however, courts have treated it as something materially more: an enforceable covenant by the grantor to procure recordation within a reasonable time. The phrase thus straddles the line between recital and obligation. Researchers should not assume the phrase is decorative in jurisdictions that have adopted the Pennsylvania construction.
---
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in historical deed records, title abstracts, and conveyancing practice manuals rather than in modern statutory codes or judicial opinions. Several research dynamics are worth flagging:
Chain of title searches. The phrase signals a deliberate gap. A title examiner encountering "intended to be recorded" in a recital is being told, explicitly, that the instrument referenced has not yet been indexed. The instrument may have been recorded later in the same grantor-grantee index, recorded in the wrong county, or never recorded at all. Each outcome carries different consequences under the applicable recording act.
Covenant vs. recital distinction. The Pennsylvania judicial construction — that the phrase creates an implied covenant — matters for historical title disputes and grantor liability questions. Researchers working with Pennsylvania deed records from the nineteenth century or earlier should treat the phrase as potentially operative language, not background narration. The primary authority is Penn v. Preston, 2 Rawle (Pa.) 14, cited consistently across all three source dictionaries.
Recording act intersection. The phrase interacts directly with notice, race-notice, and race recording statutes. A subsequent purchaser who sees this language in the chain is on inquiry notice that an unrecorded instrument exists. Whether that inquiry notice defeats a bona fide purchaser defense depends on the jurisdiction's recording act framework. This is an area where historical sources are largely silent on the modern recording act dimension — researchers should move from the dictionary definition to the recording act analysis quickly.
Formulaic survival in modern practice. The phrase has largely disappeared from contemporary drafting, replaced by more specific recitals or title insurance mechanisms. Its appearance in modern documents would be unusual enough to warrant close attention. In historical sources, its prevalence in deed boilerplate means researchers should not over-read a single occurrence as uniquely significant — but should absolutely flag the underlying gap it describes.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries — Black's (1st Ed.), Black's (2nd Ed.), and Bouvier's — are in complete agreement. The definitions are nearly identical across sources, which is itself informative: this is a term of art with a settled, narrow meaning that generated no meaningful definitional controversy in the nineteenth-century legal literature.
The second edition of Black's improves on the first only by providing the full citation to Penn v. Preston rather than the bare reporter reference "2 Rawle, 14." Bouvier's renders the same substance with minor typographical differences (including what appears to be a printing artifact — "cov nant" for "covenant").
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the interaction between this phrase and recording act priority rules, the question of what constitutes "reasonable time" for purposes of the implied covenant, or the consequences of the grantor's failure to procure recordation. These are gaps that modern researchers must fill from case law and treatise sources outside the dictionary shelf.
---
Jurisdictional Note
The implied covenant construction originates in Pennsylvania case law and is the only jurisdiction-specific treatment that appears in the historical dictionary sources. Whether other jurisdictions have adopted this reading is not addressed by the source dictionaries, and researchers should not assume the Pennsylvania rule has general application. In jurisdictions applying a strict recital-only construction, the phrase carries no independent legal obligation.
---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
realestate_40: Recording — Priority, Indexing, and the Effect of Recording on Third Parties (The Law Mind Real Estate Transactions & Construction Encyclopedia)
---