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Terms Used In Florida Statutes 695.20

  • Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
  • Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
  • Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
  • Mortgagee: The person to whom property is mortgaged and who has loaned the money.
  • person: includes individuals, children, firms, associations, joint adventures, partnerships, estates, trusts, business trusts, syndicates, fiduciaries, corporations, and all other groups or combinations. See Florida Statutes 1.01
Whenever anyone shall have contracted to purchase real estate in the state, prior to January 1, 1930, by written agreement requiring all payments to be made within 10 years from the date of the contract, or has accepted an assignment of such an agreement, and the fact of the existence of such a contract of purchase, or assignment, appears of record from the instrument itself or by reference in some other recorded instrument, and shall not have obtained and placed of record a deed to the property or a decree of a court of competent jurisdiction recognizing her or his rights thereunto, and is not in actual possession of the property covered by the contract or by the assignment, as defined in 1s. 95.17, she or he, her or his surviving spouse, heirs, personal representatives, successors, and assigns, shall have no further interest in the property described in the contract, or the assignment, by virtue thereof, and the record of such contract, assignment or other record reference thereto, shall no longer constitute either actual or constructive notice to a purchaser, mortgagee, or other person acquiring an interest in the property, unless within 6 months after this law shall take effect, (approved April 26, 1941) she or he or some one claiming under her or him shall:

(1) Place on record a deed or other conveyance of the property from the holder of the record title; or
(2) Place on record a written instrument executed by the holder of the record title evidencing an extension or modification of the original contract and showing that the original contract remains in force and effect; or
(3) Institute, or have pending, in a court of competent jurisdiction a suit for the enforcement of her or his rights under such contract.