2012 New York Consolidated Laws
RPP - Real Property
Article 9 - (290 - 336) RECORDING INSTRUMENTS AFFECTING REAL PROPERTY
290 - Definitions; effect of article.

 
    § 290. Definitions; effect of article. 1. The term "real property," as
  used  in  this  article, includes lands, tenements and hereditaments and
  chattels real, except a lease for a term not exceeding three years.
    2. The term "purchaser" includes every person to whom  any  estate  or
  interest  in real property is conveyed for a valuable consideration, and
  every assignee of a mortgage, lease or other conditional estate.
    3. The term "conveyance" includes every written instrument,  by  which
  any  estate  or  interest  in  real  property  is  created, transferred,
  mortgaged or assigned, or by which the title to any real property may be
  affected, including an instrument in execution of a power, although  the
  power  be  one  of  revocation  only,  and  an  instrument postponing or
  subordinating a mortgage lien; except a will, a lease  for  a  term  not
  exceeding three years, an executory contract for the sale or purchase of
  lands,  and  an instrument containing a power to convey real property as
  the agent or attorney for the owner of such property.
    4. The term "recording officer" means the county clerk of the  county,
  except in a county having a register, where it means the register of the
  county.
    5.  "Recording"  or  "recorded"  means  the entry, at length, upon the
  pages of the proper record books in a plain and legible hand writing, or
  in print or in symbols of drawing or by photographic process  or  partly
  in  writing,  partly in printing, partly in symbols of drawing or partly
  by photographic process or by  any  combination  of  writing,  printing,
  drawing or photography or either or any two of them, or by an electronic
  process  by  which a record or instrument affecting real property, after
  delivery  is  incorporated  into  the  public  record.  "Recording"   or
  "recorded"    also    means   the   reproduction   of   instruments   by
  microphotography or other photographic process on film which is kept  in
  appropriate files.
    6.  "Electronic" means of or relating to technology having electrical,
  digital,  magnetic,  wireless,  optical,  electromagnetic   or   similar
  capabilities.
    7.   "Electronic   record"   means  information  evidencing  any  act,
  transaction, occurrence, event or other activity, produced or stored  by
  electronic  means  and  capable  of being accurately reproduced in forms
  perceptible by human sensory capabilities.
    8. "Electronic  signature"  means  an  electronic  sound,  symbol,  or
  process,  attached  to or logically associated with an electronic record
  and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record.
    9. "Paper document" means a document in a form that is not electronic.
    10. "Digitized paper document" means a  digitized  image  of  a  paper
  document  that  accurately depicts the information on the paper document
  in a format that cannot be altered without detection.
    11. "Wet signature" means a signature affixed  in  ink  or  pencil  or
  other material to a paper document.
    12.  This  article  does not apply to leases for life or lives, or for
  years, heretofore made, of lands in either of the  counties  of  Albany,
  Ulster, Sullivan, Herkimer, Dutchess, Columbia, Delaware or Schenectady.