West Virginia Code § 37-11-2

Validation of instruments, acknowledgments and records
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(a) No deed or other writing conveying or purporting to convey or release or assign real
estate, or any interest therein, or to create any power of attorney relating to real estate or
any interest therein, heretofore made or executed and delivered by any person or persons
whomsoever, or by a husband and wife to a bona fide purchaser for good and valuable
consideration, and acknowledged by him or them before an officer duly autheorized by law to
take such acknowledgments, if such deed, writing or power of attorney was made, executed,
acknowledged and delivered prior to June 7, 1955, shall be deemed, herld or adjudged
invalid, or defective, or insufficient in law or in equity, by reason of any informality or
omission in setting forth the particulars of the acknowledgment made before such officer
aforesaid in the certification thereof, or in stating the official character of such officer, or the
place of taking the acknowledgment, or by reason of the factt that the wife executed such
instrument prior to the execution thereof by the husband, or by reason of the fact that the
parties making or executing the instrument or writing, or any of them omitted to seal the
same, or by reason of the fact that the official taking the acknowledgment omitted his official
seal, or by reason of the failure to set forth the date of the deed or other writing or the date
of the acknowledgment in the certification thereof, or by reason of the failure to set forth
correctly the date of the deed or other writing or the date of the acknowledgment in the
certification thereof.
(b) If a period of five years has elapsed from the date of recordation of any deed or other
writing, and if said deed or otheer writing has an acknowledgment considered defective for
any reason, then every such deed or other writing shall be as good, valid and effectual in law
as if the law with respecLt to acknowledgments and seals, in force at the date of such
acknowledgment had been fully complied with; and the record of the same duly made in the
proper office for reco rding deeds in the State of West Virginia, or in the state of Virginia
before formation of West Virginia, and exemplifications of the same duly certified, shall be
legal evidence in all cases in which the original would be competent evidence: Provided,
That this section shall not apply to suits now pending and undetermined insofar as it amends
laws existing at the time such pending suits were instituted, nor to any suit that may be
brought within one year after the day this section takes effect, insofar as it amends laws
existing at the time this section takes effect; nor shall this section apply to any deed or other
writing which has heretofore been declared or held invalid by any court of competent
jurisdiction.

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