Clearing an Old or Unsatisfied Mortgage From a New York Title Report

Most old mortgages can be cleared without going to court. A mortgage stays on the public record until a satisfaction is recorded. A satisfaction is the lender’s signed statement that the loan is paid (state law also calls it a “certificate of discharge”). Sometimes the loan was paid but no satisfaction was recorded. Sometimes the mortgage is decades old and the lender is gone. Either way, the title report lists it as open. The title company won’t insure over it until it is dealt with.

The usual order is:

Get a satisfaction from the lender that holds the mortgage on the record.
For a home, if a paid lender won’t deliver one, have an attorney record an affidavit instead.
Ask the title insurer whether it will leave the mortgage out of the policy.
Only then, go to court.

These rules apply statewide. Only the recording office changes:

Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx: the NYC City Register, searchable in ACRIS (see how to read ACRIS for title).
Staten Island: the Richmond County Clerk.
Westchester and elsewhere: the county clerk.

The satisfaction, affidavit or court order is recorded where the mortgage was recorded. Start by pulling the mortgage and every recorded assignment (transfer of the loan to a new lender). Who must sign the satisfaction depends on that chain.

Which route fits

Situation	Court?	What clears it
Paid; lender on record reachable	No	A satisfaction from that lender. The lender must arrange recording within 30 days of payment. Any property.
Satisfaction signed by the wrong party	No	A corrected satisfaction from the last lender on record, or recording the missing assignment or power of attorney. Any property.
Paid; lender silent 90+ days	No	An attorney affidavit. Owner-occupied one-to-six family home or residential condo unit only. 90 days after payment, then a 35-day objection window.
Old mortgage, closing coming up	No	The title insurer agrees to leave it out of the policy or insure over it, often with an affidavit, indemnity or escrow. Rules vary by insurer.
Paid or offered; lender refuses or not found in NY	Yes	A court petition to cancel the mortgage. Any property. 8 days’ notice to the other side.
Very old; holder gone over 5 years	Yes	A court petition for old mortgages presumed paid. Any property.
Too late to foreclose	Yes	A lawsuit to cancel a mortgage the lender can no longer foreclose. Payment not required. Not available if the lender is in possession. 6 years from when the lender demanded the full balance or the loan matured.

Your mortgage is paid but still shows on the record

For homeowners, it usually looks like this. The loan was paid off, sometimes years ago. But the mortgage still shows on a title report, a refinance search or a public records lookup. Usually the lender or servicer never recorded the satisfaction, or recorded it against the wrong document.

Check the record first.

NYC (four boroughs): search the property in ACRIS. Look for a SAT, the code for a satisfaction, that points back to your mortgage. How to read ACRIS for title explains how to match them.
Westchester: use the County Clerk’s free index search, Westchester Records Online. You can view images on terminals at the Clerk’s office in White Plains or order copies by mail.
Staten Island: records are with the Richmond County Clerk.

If a satisfaction is recorded but signed by the wrong party, see “Who has to sign” below.

Ask for it in writing. If nothing is recorded, write to the current servicer: the last company you paid, or the company that took it over. Ask it to record a satisfaction of mortgage. Include:

The loan number and property address.
The mortgage’s recording details.
The payoff date and proof of payment.
A reference to New York’s satisfaction law and mortgage discharge law.

Keep copies, and send the letter in a way you can prove. The lender’s deadlines and penalties are below.

Recording fees. The law doesn’t say who pays to record the satisfaction, so check your payoff statement for a recording or release charge. As of October 2026:

The Westchester County Clerk charges $50.50 for a one-page satisfaction with no assignments, and more when assignments are listed.
The NYC City Register charges $32 plus $5 per page and a $5 cover page. For a satisfaction of a combined (consolidated) mortgage, the charge apart from the per-page fee is multiplied by the number of mortgages combined.

If the lender still doesn’t act, go to Step 2. For an owner-occupied one-to-six family home or condo unit, Step 3 (the attorney affidavit) may also apply.

Step 1: A satisfaction from the right lender

What the lender must do

When a mortgage is paid in full, the lender must sign a satisfaction. Within 30 days, it must arrange for it to be recorded, or give it to you or someone you name if you ask. It must also return the note and mortgage within 45 days. Two state laws set this out (mortgage discharge law and satisfaction law).

A lender that misses the recording deadline owes you a penalty:

Not sent for recording within	Lender owes you
30 days	$500
60 days	$1,000
90 days	$1,500

These penalties don’t apply to a lender that makes fewer than five mortgage loans in a calendar year. So a private or seller-held mortgage is usually outside them.

For an owner-occupied one-to-six family home or a residential condo unit, there is a separate rule. If the satisfaction and the note and mortgage aren’t delivered within 90 days, the lender owes the greater of $500 or your actual financial loss.

A lender also may not refuse or return a payment made under its own payoff statement. The only exception is a defect that keeps it from telling which mortgage the payment is for.

Who has to sign

By state law, the satisfaction is signed by:

The original lender (or, if the lender was a person who has died, their executor or administrator), if the mortgage was never assigned on the record.
The last lender it was assigned to on the record, if it was. The satisfaction must list each assignment in that chain, with recording details.

A satisfaction signed by the wrong party is a common title objection. Typical cases:

The original lender signs after the loan was assigned to a trust or another lender.
A servicer signs in its own name with no recorded power of attorney. An agent may sign only under a power of attorney recorded in the same office as the mortgage and not revoked.
An assignment was never recorded. The signer really holds the loan but isn’t in the record chain.

The recording office will still record a satisfaction signed by the wrong party. So the index may show the mortgage as satisfied when the title examiner won’t treat it that way. The fix is a corrected satisfaction from the last lender on record. Or the missing assignment (and power of attorney, if needed) is recorded, so the signer is in the chain.

Lost note

A lender that can’t find the original note still has to deliver a satisfaction. For a home, the lender avoids owing your actual loss only if it does three things. It delivers the satisfaction on time. It certifies that it doesn’t have the note or mortgage. And it agrees to protect you from any later claim on the debt. A recorded satisfaction clears the title either way. The certification and promise protect you if someone later claims you still owe the debt.

Step 2: The lender won’t respond

Send a written demand to the contact on the payoff statement and to the current servicer. Include proof of payment: the payoff statement, both sides of the cashed check, or the wire confirmation. Refer again to the two state laws above.

If that fails, the next step is the attorney affidavit for qualifying homes. Otherwise, ask the title insurer (Step 4) or go to court (Step 5).

Step 3: The attorney affidavit

When the lender was paid but hasn’t delivered a satisfaction, a New York attorney can record an affidavit that works like one (state law). No court is involved.

Who qualifies.

The property must be an owner-occupied home with one to six units, or a residential condo unit. Commercial, investor-owned and vacant-land mortgages don’t qualify.
The loan must have been paid according to a payoff statement.
The lender must have failed to deliver the satisfaction, note and mortgage within 90 days of payment.

Who signs and what’s included. The affidavit is signed by a New York attorney in good standing, acting for the borrower or a later owner. It doesn’t have to be the closing attorney or the person who paid. It states that the satisfaction was properly requested and the loan was paid as the payoff statement required. The payoff statement and proof of payment are attached. If proof of payment is missing, a bank must give copies of the front and back of a check within 60 days of a written request.

Notice before filing. At least 30 days after the lender was paid, the attorney mails notice, by certified or registered mail, to the person or department named in the payoff statement. A copy of the proposed affidavit goes with it. The lender must not have objected in writing (or must have had its payment requests met) at least 15 days before the affidavit is dated.

Filing and objections.

The affidavit is filed with the recording office for an extra $50 fee.
Within five days, the clerk mails notice to the lender.
If the lender files a sworn objection within 35 days of filing, the affidavit is returned unrecorded. A copy goes to the state court’s attorney disciplinary committee.
If there’s no objection, the affidavit is recorded like a satisfaction and the mortgage is cleared.

With 90 days from payoff plus the 35-day objection window, this takes about four months at least. It clears old paid loans. It rarely helps a closing next week. An attorney who carelessly includes false information, and anyone who supplies it, is liable to the lender for the resulting harm.

Step 4: Ask the title insurer

Title insurers sometimes agree to leave an old open mortgage out of the policy, or insure over it, without a recorded satisfaction. This is the insurer’s choice, not a legal right. Each insurer sets its own rules. They usually look at:

How old the mortgage is and its original amount.
When it was due to be paid off.
Evidence of payment.
Whether there has been any later activity, such as an assignment or foreclosure filing.

Some accept an owner’s sworn statement of payment for older, smaller mortgages; others require more. There is no single industry standard, and figures from one insurer don’t apply to another.

Raise the mortgage with the title company early and ask exactly what it will accept. It may require an affidavit, an indemnity, or money held from the seller’s proceeds until a satisfaction is recorded. This protects the person insured under that policy only. It doesn’t remove the mortgage from the record. The next buyer’s title company will see it again and may decide differently. A recorded satisfaction or court order is the permanent fix.

Step 5: Going to court

Court comes in when there’s no satisfaction and the insurer won’t insure over the mortgage. Which route fits depends on whether the debt was paid, whether the holder can be found, and how old the mortgage is.

The lender was paid (or offered payment) but won’t act

Anyone with an interest in the property, the mortgage or the debt can ask a court to cancel the mortgage on the record. The case goes to the state Supreme Court or County Court where the property is (state law). The lender gets eight days’ notice. Sometimes payment can’t be made in New York despite real effort. Then the court can cancel the mortgage once the balance and allowed fees are paid into court. The court may award the person who filed costs and reasonable attorney’s fees. There is no property-type limit, so this is the court route for commercial and investor properties that can’t use the attorney affidavit.

A very old mortgage whose holder is gone

A separate law covers old mortgages presumed paid because so much time has passed (state law). The borrower, an heir or anyone with an interest in the land can file in the state Supreme Court or County Court where the property is. The petition must be sworn, state that the debt was paid and include a search showing any assignments. The lender and any later holder must have been dead for more than five years. For a company, it must have closed or stopped doing business more than five years ago.

The law sets no fixed age for the mortgage. The passage of time counts as proof of payment unless someone denies payment and proves otherwise. Courts and lawyers generally look to the older rule that payment is presumed 20 years after the loan came due. Courts have turned down petitions where payments stopped too recently or the holder couldn’t be accounted for (Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.). For a mortgage recorded or presumed paid more than 50 years ago, the person filing can state some facts on best knowledge and describe their search. The court then notifies interested people, including by newspaper notice.

This route doesn’t fit a lender that still exists, even after a merger or sale. If a successor bank, the FDIC as receiver, or a loan trust can be found, the satisfaction comes from it. Otherwise, one of the other court routes applies.

The lender waited too long to foreclose

A lender has six years to sue to foreclose (state law). Once that time has run, anyone with an interest in the property can sue to cancel the mortgage on the record (state law). It doesn’t matter whether the debt was paid. This isn’t available if the lender is in possession of the property.

The hard question is when the six years started. Under long-standing New York court decisions, the clock runs on the whole debt once the loan matures or is accelerated. Acceleration means the lender demands the full balance, usually by letter or by filing a foreclosure. Before that, it runs separately on each missed payment.

The Foreclosure Abuse Prevention Act (FAPA), signed December 30, 2022 and effective immediately, closed the main ways lenders had restarted that clock. For example, a lender can no longer reset it by sending a letter taking back the acceleration, or by dropping a foreclosure case.

On November 25, 2025, New York’s highest court unanimously held that FAPA’s key parts apply to older loans too (first decision, second decision). That includes cases pending when the law took effect, where no final foreclosure judgment had been carried out. In May 2026 the federal appeals court that had asked the question agreed and rejected the remaining federal challenges (decision).

Take a mortgage accelerated more than six years ago in a foreclosure that was later dropped or dismissed. It is now a stronger case for cancellation than before 2023. Timing still depends on the facts. So the foreclosure history is rebuilt from court records before filing: filings, withdrawals, dismissals and any court findings on acceleration. A title company will generally want the judgment recorded before insuring without exception.

When the property is being sold from an estate, the same steps apply; see buying or selling from an estate in New York. For who handles title problems at a closing, see who does what at a New York closing.

Details for attorneys and title professionals

Attorney affidavit contents. It names the borrower, lender, mortgage date, recording details and any recorded assignments. The proof of payment attached must include the lender’s endorsement on the check, with the copies certified by the attorney as copies of the originals. On a returned affidavit, the copy goes to the attorney disciplinary committee (the law calls it the “committee on professional standards”) of the applicable Appellate Division.
Paying into court. The court route for a lender that can’t be found in New York is conditioned on paying the outstanding balance and allowed fees into court.
How FAPA works in a cancellation suit. Once a claim on the loan has accrued, no one can waive, postpone, pause, revive or reset the clock on their own unless a law expressly allows it (state law). Voluntarily dropping a foreclosure doesn’t pause or reset the six years (state law). In a suit to cancel a time-barred mortgage, the holder can’t argue that its own earlier acceleration was invalid, unless an earlier case was dismissed because a court expressly found the acceleration invalid on a timely defense (state law).
The 2025 rulings. They rejected the challenges raised in those cases under the state and federal due process clauses and the federal Contract Clause.

Official sources

Korvane Title is preparing to launch in New York. It is not licensed as a title insurance agent and does not accept title orders. Content on this site is general information, not legal advice.