Overview
The Land Court Department (LCD), established under Section 1 of Chapter 211B of the Massachusetts General Laws, is one of seven departments of the Massachusetts Trial Court. Chapter 478 of the Acts of 1978 restructured the Trial Court into seven departments: the Boston Municipal Court, the District Court, the Housing Court, the Juvenile Court, the Probate and Family Court, the Superior Court, and LCD.
According to LCD’s website,
The court has exclusive, original jurisdiction over the registration of title to real property and over all matters and disputes concerning such title subsequent to registration. The court also exercises exclusive original jurisdiction over the foreclosure and redemption of real estate tax liens [under Section 1 of Chapter 185 of the General Laws]. . . . The court has concurrent jurisdiction over specific performance of contracts relating to real estate and over petitions for partitions of real estate. . . . The court shares jurisdiction over matters arising out of decisions by local planning boards and zoning boards of appeal. Both the Land Court and the Superior Court Department have jurisdiction over the processing of . . . mortgage foreclosure activity. Additionally, the court has superintendency authority over the registered land office in each registry of deeds.
LCD consists of six associate justices and one Chief Justice. The Chief Justice is subject to the authority of the Supreme Judicial Court and is the administrative head of LCD. LCD is located at 3 Pemberton Square in Boston. As of June 30, 2021, it had approximately 57 employees. LCD judges normally sit in Boston; LCD also holds trials in other locations as needed. Between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2021, LCD had 13 escrow accounts (totaling $1,050,674) that were opened before the audit period, and it established an additional 10 escrow accounts (totaling $3,014,258) during the audit period. LCD disbursed $2,134,751 from 7 escrow accounts to real estate stakeholders during this time.
During the audit period, LCD transferred $58,018 to the Office of the State Treasurer’s (OST’s) Unclaimed Property Division (UPD) from seven escrow accounts that were considered abandoned because the real estate stakeholders did not come forward within three years after the cases had been closed.
Effective January 1, 2003, LCD was granted jurisdiction over petitions for partitions2 of real estate property under Section 1 of Chapter 185 of the General Laws. A real estate attorney can apply to become a partition commissioner and be placed on a master list of partition commissioners that is maintained by LCD. When an amicable sale by all owners of a property is not possible, a judge may appoint a partition commissioner from the master list. The partition commissioner manages the sale of the property and the collection of the proceeds to seek the highest possible return for all the real estate stakeholders. The stakeholders may also recommend an attorney they choose from the master list to the judge for appointment. For each case, the appointed partition commissioner is required to submit to the court a signed and notarized “Commissioner Oath,” which is valid for the duration of the case. Partition commissioners also prepare reports detailing activities (negotiating, preparing legal documents, and serving real estate stakeholders) and expenses (hours charged and fees paid for title examination, survey work, and postage) for each partition case and submit them to judges for reimbursement.
If the real estate stakeholders do not claim the proceeds from the sale of the property, or the rightful owners cannot be located, the judge orders that the funds will be kept in an escrow account established by LCD. After LCD gives the final judgment for the partition case, the stakeholders have three years to claim the funds in the escrow account. Any funds remaining in the escrow account after this three-year period are considered abandoned and are transferred to UPD.
Escrow
Once a judge issues an order to establish an escrow account, an LCD session clerk3 notifies the LCD head account clerk.4 The order details whether the escrow account will be an internal account,5 which is a non-interest-bearing account in People’s United Bank that is maintained by OST, or an external account, which is an interest-bearing account in a different commercial bank. The LCD recorder and deputy recorder6 are both authorized signatories for the court and physically go to the bank to set up the account in the judge’s name when an external account is ordered.
One of the prerequisites for escrow accounts is that no fees can be applied. When choosing a commercial bank for external accounts, the head account clerk compares interest rates between banks that are approved by OST and recommends the one that has the highest interest rate to the LCD recorder and deputy recorder. Any interest is recorded in MassCourts, a Trial Court database of court records.
A disbursement from an escrow account is initiated during the court case by the issuance of a judge’s order of disbursement to cover various administrative expenses, such as partition commissioner fees, property maintenance expenses, taxes, and utility bills. It is not uncommon to have multiple disbursements from escrow accounts. For funds to be disbursed, the Executive Office of the Trial Court’s Fiscal Systems Manual requires a signed Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification (Internal Revenue Service Form W‑9) from the real estate stakeholders. Once LCD receives the W-9s, the bookkeeper prepares the paperwork to release the funds. For an external account, the LCD recorder or deputy recorder physically goes to the bank to have the check issued and signs the check. For an internal account, the head account clerk issues a check via MassCourts and the LCD recorder or deputy recorder signs it. Finally, the LCD judicial secretary mails the check either to the stakeholders or directly to the administrative expense recipients.
When a case is closed, the judge issues a final order, and the real estate stakeholders have three years to claim the funds in the escrow account before LCD is required to turn the funds over to UPD. LCD’s unwritten policy is to notify the stakeholders with a “Letter of Intent to Abandon” three months before sending funds to UPD. If the head account clerk does not receive any response from the stakeholders before the three-year deadline, the head account clerk turns the funds over to UPD.
Partition Commissioner Lists
LCD maintains three types of appointment lists for partition commissioners: the master list, the county lists, and a public hard copy. The master list is sorted alphabetically by active partition commissioner name and includes all cases that have been assigned to each partition commissioner. It also includes a tab for inactive, deceased, and retired partition commissioners. LCD has used this internal list since 2003 as an archive of all partition commissioner appointments. The county lists are used by session clerks and partition commissioners and are organized by the county from which partition commissioners prefer to take cases. The county lists are kept on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet in a shared LCD folder and used to make successive appointments (i.e., to assign each case to the next available attorney on the county list). These lists are continually updated, and the partition commissioners with active cases are listed at the bottom of each one. Finally, the hardcopy master list details all the appointments made since 2003 and is available for public inspection at LCD’s main office. This list mirrors the Excel master list of partition commissioners, except that it does not include inactive, deceased, or retired partition commissioners. All three types of partition commissioner appointment list are managed by the LCD office manager and reviewed by the deputy recorder.
| Date published: | March 31, 2022 |
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