Massachusetts Real Estate Broker Exam — All Questions

A buyer takes a certificate of title to registered Massachusetts land, for value and in good faith. What does she take it subject to?

• a.Only the mortgage the buyer grants at the closing, and nothing else
• b.Every encumbrance recorded anywhere in the registry for that county
• c.The encumbrances noted on the certificate and a short statutory list✓
• d.Every easement a title examiner finds in a fifty-year title search

M.G.L. c.185 s.46 provides that a purchaser of registered land taking a certificate of title for value and in good faith holds it free from all encumbrances except those noted on the certificate and a short list the section then sets out, including certain federal and state claims not required to be recorded, taxes within three years of commitment to the collector, certain ways whose boundary has not been determined, and betterment assessments. That is the whole point of the Land Court registration system, and it is what makes the answer sweeping in every recorded encumbrance wrong. Existing encumbrances do not vanish merely because the buyer grants a new mortgage. And a long search of the recorded side is exactly the work registration is meant to replace.

A Massachusetts condominium unit is being sold. What does the certificate under chapter 183A, section 6(d) do?

• a.It certifies that the unit meets the state sanitary code for occupancy
• b.It transfers the seller's percentage interest in the common areas
• c.It records the buyer's consent to the condominium by-laws and rules
• d.It states the unpaid common expenses and, when recorded, clears the lien✓

M.G.L. c.183A s.6(d) provides that a statement from the organization of unit owners setting out the unpaid common expenses and other sums assessed against a unit operates, when recorded in the appropriate registry of deeds, to discharge the unit from any lien for other sums then unpaid. The organization must furnish it within ten business days of a written request on payment of a reasonable fee, and it binds the organization and every unit owner. Fitness for occupancy is a housing-code question settled elsewhere in the General Laws and says nothing about a unit's assessment account. The undivided interest in the common areas passes with the unit deed itself, not by certificate. And the by-laws bind a purchaser by operation of the chapter, without any recorded consent.