Vermont Discharge of Mortgage (Two Individual Cotrustees)

Two fiduciary signatures, two acknowledgment certificates, and one paid mortgage cleared from a Vermont town's land records: that is the configuration this form carries. It is a Vermont discharge of mortgage by separate instrument under 27 V.S.A. section 463, set up for a mortgage held of record by a trust with exactly two individuals serving as cotrustees, and it provides a signature block and a notary certificate for each of them.

A trust as the lender of record

Private lending runs through trusts more often than the word mortgagee suggests. A family trust finances the sale of a farmhouse and takes back a mortgage; an investment trust buys a seasoned loan and records an assignment; a settlor moves a seller financed note and mortgage into a revocable trust as part of an estate plan. When the loan pays off, the trust side of the record has to close the loop. Vermont law puts a clock on it: under 27 V.S.A. section 464, the mortgagee of record executes and delivers a valid and complete discharge within 30 days after full performance, together with any instrument necessary to establish record ownership and the authority to execute the discharge, and a holder that misses the window faces statutory damages of $25.00 per day up to $5,000.00, plus consequential damages, punitive damages, court costs, and reasonable attorney's fees where an aggrieved party substantially prevails.

The section 463 certification

Vermont's separate instrument route is deliberately compact. Section 463(a) supplies a short statutory certification and directs that the discharge be substantially in that form: a certification that the described mortgage is paid in full and satisfied, identifying the mortgagor, the mortgagee, the mortgage date, and the book, page, and town of the land records where the mortgage is recorded. This form carries that certification word for word as its operative language, wrapped in numbered sections that collect the trust's name, the cotrustees, any recorded assignments that connect an original lender to the trust, and the property. Section 463(b) states the payoff: once the satisfaction is acknowledged before a notary public and recorded, it discharges the mortgage and bars actions brought on it. The same instrument is what many customers search for as a satisfaction of mortgage, a mortgage release, or a lien release; in Vermont the statute calls it a discharge.

Two cotrustees, both signing

The variant is the execution architecture. The form recites the trust as mortgagee of record, names the two cotrustees, and states that each signs as cotrustee and not individually. Vermont's Trust Code lets cotrustees who cannot reach unanimity act by majority under 14A V.S.A. section 703, and with exactly two cotrustees no majority smaller than both exists, so the form carries both signatures and treats them independently: each cotrustee has a separate acknowledgment certificate, so the two fiduciaries may sign on different dates, before different notaries, or in different states. The form is not set up as a sole trustee instrument, a corporate trustee instrument, or an individual mortgagee instrument; its recitals and certificates fit the two individual cotrustee pattern.

Recording in the town, not the county

Vermont records land documents municipally, so the completed discharge goes to the clerk of the town or city whose land records hold the mortgage, at the statewide fee of $15.00 per page under 32 V.S.A. section 1671. No property transfer tax return accompanies a discharge, because the return requirement reaches documents evidencing a transfer of title. The form reserves the top of its first page for the clerk's recording information and prints on letter size paper.

The purchase delivers the fillable discharge form, a completed example showing a plausible trust payoff from start to finish, and a line by line guide to the statutes and the blanks. The materials are informational and are not legal advice; a Vermont attorney can apply these rules to a particular loan or trust.