Vermont Assignment of Mortgage (Entity Trustee)

This fill-in-the-blank Vermont Assignment of Mortgage is configured for an entity that holds a recorded mortgage in a trustee capacity, a trust company or bank named in the land records as trustee of a mortgage-holding trust. The form recites the entity and its trustee capacity as the assignor, carries a signature block with printed name and title lines for the officer who signs on the entity's behalf, and transfers the mortgage to one named assignee for recording in the Vermont town or city where the land lies.

A mortgage holder that signs through an officer

The defining architecture of this configuration sits in two places. Section 1 of the form states the assignor's full entity name, its organizational form, and the capacity in which it holds the mortgage, in the style of a trust company identified solely as trustee of a named trust. The signature section then provides one signature line with printed name and title entries, and the acknowledgment certificate's blank carries the signer's name and representative capacity, the content the optional short-form certificate for representative acknowledgments in 26 V.S.A. section 5368 recites. The operative section states that the assignor acts solely in its trustee capacity and not individually, and that the assignment is made without recourse and without covenant or warranty except as expressly stated.

Mortgages held this way appear throughout Vermont land records. Residential loans pooled into a securitization trust with an institutional trustee as the holder of record, and loans held by the trustee of a family or business trust, both present the pattern this assignment recites. The form recites exactly one entity assignor and one assignee; an individual holder signing personally, or co-holders assigning together, present different execution patterns from the one this form carries.

From one holder of record to the next

Vermont treats a mortgage as a conveyance of an interest in land, so a mortgage assignment travels under the general conveyance statutes: signed by the assignor and acknowledged before a notary public under 27 V.S.A. section 341, and recorded to hold the interest against third parties under 27 V.S.A. section 342. A statute speaks to the instrument by name: 24 V.S.A. section 1158 directs that an assignment of a mortgage be duly recorded in the records of the town and describes the marginal cross-reference between the assignment and the record of the mortgage it touches.

The recorded assignment is also what positions the assignee for the instruments that follow. Vermont's discharge statutes, 27 V.S.A. sections 461 through 463, run to the mortgagee and the mortgagee's assignee, so a transfer of mortgage that reaches the record keeps the chain intact from the original mortgagee to the party expected to discharge the lien when the debt is paid.

Recording with the town clerk, not a county recorder

Vermont records land instruments by town and city rather than by county, so the assignment goes to the clerk of the municipality where the land lies, the same office that holds the mortgage of record. The statewide recording fee under 32 V.S.A. section 1671 is $15.00 per page. A property transfer tax return ordinarily plays no role here: the Vermont Department of Taxes treats mortgage deeds and typical assignments as outside the transfer-return filing category, so this mortgage assignment usually presents nothing beyond the instrument itself at the recording counter.

The download includes the blank fillable Assignment of Mortgage form, a completed example showing one filled-in version of the same form, and a guide that walks through every section, the representative-capacity acknowledgment, and the town recording process. The materials are informational and are not legal advice; a Vermont attorney can address how these statutes operate on a specific loan or trust.