Vermont Discharge of Mortgage (Executed by Attorney-in-Fact)

The signature line on this Vermont discharge of mortgage does not wait for the mortgagee. The form is set up for execution by an attorney-in-fact, an agent who signs the discharge on the mortgagee's behalf under a recorded power of attorney, so a paid-off mortgage comes off the town land records even when the holder is out of state, in poor health, or otherwise unavailable to sign. It prepares the separate discharge instrument described in 27 V.S.A. 463, ready for the clerk of the Vermont town or city whose land records hold the mortgage.

A discharge signed by the mortgagee's agent

The form carries one signature line, reading mortgagee, by attorney-in-fact, and one acknowledgment certificate, completed for the agent who appears before the notary. Section 2 recites the agent's name, the date of the power of attorney, and the volume and page or document number where the power is recorded in the town land records; the operative discharge language then runs in the mortgagee's name, acting by and through that agent. Patterns that present this configuration in Vermont records include a seller-financed mortgage whose private holder has since moved away, a family purchase-money loan paid off years after it was given, and a payoff completed while an elderly mortgagee manages financial affairs through a durable power of attorney. The form recites one mortgagee acting through one agent; a discharge signed by the mortgagee personally, by a bank officer for an institutional lender, or by the fiduciary of a deceased mortgagee follows a different execution pattern.

What Vermont law says about who may sign

Vermont supplies three discharge methods in 27 V.S.A. 461 through 463: a margin entry witnessed at the town clerk's office, an acknowledgment of payment entered on the mortgage deed itself, and the separate recorded instrument this form prepares. The statutes expressly reach agents: section 462 names an attorney acting under a duly executed and recorded power of attorney among those who may sign, and 27 V.S.A. 305 ties the effect of an instrument signed under a power of attorney to a power that is itself signed, acknowledged, and recorded in the office where the instrument records. The Vermont Uniform Power of Attorney Act completes the authority side: under 14 V.S.A. 4034, a grant of general authority over real property lets the agent release an interest in real property, and 14 V.S.A. 4052 publishes a statutory short form power of attorney for real estate transactions carrying those powers.

Timing has teeth in Vermont. Under 27 V.S.A. 464, the mortgagee of record must execute and deliver a valid and complete discharge within 30 days after full performance of the mortgage conditions, together with any instrument necessary to establish the authority to execute it. A holder or servicer that misses the window faces statutory damages of $25.00 per day up to $5,000.00 in the aggregate, plus consequential and punitive damages, court costs, and attorney's fees for a substantially prevailing aggrieved party. The recorded power of attorney is the authority instrument for this configuration, which is why the form gives it a dedicated identification block.

Recording in the town land records

Vermont records land instruments town by town; there is no county recorder. The completed discharge, the instrument also searched for as a satisfaction of mortgage or release of mortgage, goes to the clerk of the town or city where the property lies, with the statewide fee of $15.00 per page under 32 V.S.A. 1671. A mortgage recorded in more than one municipality is discharged in each of them. No Vermont property transfer tax return accompanies a discharge, because the instrument transfers no title; that return requirement and its recording bar attach to deeds. Where the power of attorney is not already of record with the same clerk, it is recorded with the discharge, and each instrument carries its own per page fee.

The download delivers this fillable Vermont discharge of mortgage form, a completed example showing a Milton, Chittenden County fact pattern signed by an attorney-in-fact, and a line-by-line guide to completing, signing, and recording the instrument. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.