How to confirm a deed and mortgage were recorded after closing, for title agencies?

Pull the stamped image of the deed and of the mortgage or deed of trust from the e-recording vendor or the recorder, then match each one on the county’s own index by instrument number, book and page, or file number. A Sent, Received, or Accepted status is not recorded. Log the recording information on the file.

This is for the closer or processor at a 5-to-30-person title agency or attorney-closing firm on Qualia, SoftPro, ResWare or RamQuest who has funded and still has to prove the instruments hit the land records.

What you are confirming

Recording is the county recorder’s, clerk’s, or register of deeds’ official acceptance of an instrument into the land records, stamped with a date, time, and an instrument number, file number, or book and page. That stamp is constructive notice. A closer’s send is not.

A purchase usually needs the deed and the new mortgage or deed of trust, and often a later release of the seller’s loan. A refinance usually needs the new security instrument, then the release of the loan that was paid. Log each instrument number on the file in Qualia, SoftPro, ResWare or RamQuest.

Fannie Mae Selling Guide A2-4.1-01 (09/04/2024, guide published 2026-10-07, read 2026-10-15) tells the lender’s loan file to keep a copy of the recorded mortgage or deed of trust with the recording information from the recorder’s office. That copy is what post-closing is waiting on.

What counts as recorded

The confirmation is the stamped image plus a hit on the county’s own index. A Recorded status and a stamped PDF with an instrument number are still unconfirmed until that number hits the index, matching names and legal. Sent, Received, Accepted, and a name search with no hit are not recorded.

ALTA Best Practices 5.0, published 2026-10-08, read 2026-10-15, is the shop procedure. Submit electronically or deliver to the recording jurisdiction within two business days of settlement, or of receipt if someone else closed. Track delivery and receipt. Address rejections. Verify proper recordation and keep a record of the recording information.

Qualia’s title-and-escrow page, read 2026-10-15, e-records through a Simplifile integration. SoftPro 360, rechecked 2026-10-15, orders e-recording from Simplifile, CSC, eRecording Partners Network, or Hopdox without leaving SoftPro. The portal is not the recording. ResWare and RamQuest shops run the same confirm against the vendor they already use.

The chase

Do not wait for the owner’s mailed original, the title policy jacket, or the lender’s trailing-document request to start the confirm.

When	What to do	Through which channel
Settlement day, or the next business day	Submit the deed and the mortgage or deed of trust to the right county	E-recording vendor already on the file, or walk-in or mail to the recorder named on the file
Within two business days of settlement	Confirm the vendor shows Sent or Received. ALTA 5.0	Vendor dashboard in Qualia, SoftPro 360, ResWare, or RamQuest
When status is Recorded	Download the stamped images. Log the instrument numbers. Search the county by that number	Vendor, then the recorder website already on the file
One to two business days later, still no index hit	Call the recorder number already on the file. Ask whether it recorded, rejected, or is waiting to index	Phone, then the vendor ticket
Rejected	Fix the noted items. Resubmit the entire package	Vendor

Call the recorder number already on the file or the county’s published recording line. Never a number that arrived with a recording-complete email. Note the time, the name on the other end, and the ticket or instrument number.

Harris County, Texas, is one live index. Its real-property records page, read 2026-10-15, says a processed document can take one to two business days to appear in the online inquiry, the online database is not the official repository, and a file-number search is the fastest hit. A street address is not the legal description the index uses.

This confirm is a different third party from the tax cert and from the payoff letter. Do not treat a recorded deed as the paid-off loan. The release of that loan is its own instrument.

Vendor status is not the county index

Simplifile’s submitter status table, read 2026-10-15, is the vocabulary most Qualia shops already see.

Status	What it means	Confirmed?
Sent or Received	Left you, or reached the county review queue	No
Accepted	A county employee says it qualifies and passed it to the recorder	No
Finalizing	Stamped documents came back. The county can still change them until Recorded	No
Recorded	All documents in the package recorded and returned	Not until the number hits the county index
Rejected	One document failed. The whole package comes back	No. Fix and resubmit

Simplifile’s rejection page, read 2026-10-15, lists missing legal description, missing grantee address, property not in county, insufficient fees, a bad notary, and upside-down images. If the recorder rejects an extra instrument in the same package, pull it, record the deed and the mortgage, and send the extra later.

State rules we read

The rows below are only the statutes read for this page. Other states differ. Check the underwriter’s bulletin and counsel. This is not legal advice.

Place	What recording does	What to confirm
Florida	Fla. Stat. § 695.01 (2026 Florida Statutes, read 2026-10-15): an unrecorded conveyance or mortgage is not good against creditors or subsequent purchasers for value without notice. § 695.11 deems it recorded, and notice, when the clerk affixes the consecutive official register number	That register number on the stamped image, then the official records
Texas	Property Code § 13.001 (read 2026-10-15): an unrecorded conveyance, mortgage, or deed of trust is void as to a creditor or subsequent purchaser for value without notice unless it was acknowledged, sworn to, or proved and filed for record. § 13.002: a properly recorded instrument is notice to all persons	File number or film code on the clerk index
California	Civil Code § 1213 (read 2026-10-15): constructive notice from the time it is filed with the recorder. § 1214: an unrecorded conveyance is void against a later good-faith purchaser or mortgagee for value whose conveyance is first duly recorded	Instrument number or book and page on that recorder’s index

On a Florida file, the number the clerk affixed is the confirm, even if the public website lags. On a Texas file, a processed Harris County instrument can sit off the online inquiry for a business day or two.

What does not confirm recording

Move	Why it fails
Treating Sent, Received, or Accepted as done	The recorder has not stamped it
A name search the morning after funding	The index often lags the stamp. Search by number
Confirming only the deed	The mortgage or deed of trust is a second instrument
Confirming only the new mortgage on a refinance	The paid-off loan still needs a recorded release
The owner’s mailed original, weeks later	Too late as the first confirm
Searching the wrong county, or by street address	The index is by legal, grantor, grantee, and instrument number

If Recorded will miss the lender’s trailing-document date, flag the closer that day. Resubmit. Do not issue the loan policy off a Sent status, and do not tell the lender it recorded because the vendor accepted the package.

Pull the files that funded in the last 30 days. For each purchase, confirm a stamped deed and a stamped mortgage or deed of trust, each with an instrument number that hits that county’s index. For each refinance, confirm the new security instrument the same way, and start the release chase on the loan that was paid. Log the numbers on the file that afternoon.