46 U.S.C. § 31321 — Filing, recording, and discharge

(a) (1) A bill of sale, conveyance, mortgage, assignment, or related instrument involving any part of a documented vessel^* or a vessel^* with a documentation application must be filed with the Secretary to be valid against everyone except the grantor, mortgagor, assignor, their heir or devisee, and a person with actual notice. (2) An instrument filed in substantial compliance is valid against everyone from filing. (3) Each party must use diligence to substantially comply with filing and documentation requirements. (4) Filing may be electronic under regulations. (b) A filing must identify the vessel; give each party’s name and address; for a mortgage, state^* the direct or contingent obligations secured, in one or more agreed units of account and excluding interest, expenses, and fees; state the grantor’s, mortgagor’s, or assignor’s interest; state the interest sold, conveyed, mortgaged, or assigned; and be signed and acknowledged. (c) If a filing concerns a vessel that cannot be documented by the applicant, the Secretary must send each interested party the decision and reasons. Ninety days later the Secretary may end the filing and return the instrument without recording it under (e). (d) An application may be withdrawn only with the mortgagee’s consent if a mortgage was filed. (e) The Secretary must record compliant instruments for a documented vessel in filing order and maintain public indexes of instruments filed or recorded. (f) When mortgage debt is fully and finally discharged, the mortgagee, at the Secretary’s or mortgagor’s request, must provide an acknowledged discharge certificate in the Secretary’s required form, and the Secretary must record it. (g) A mortgage or related instrument covering a vessel with a section 31322(d) preferred mortgage, later filed when a documentation application is filed, is valid from the time the financing mortgage or instrument became a preferred mortgage under section 31322(d). (h) When debt under such a deemed preferred mortgage is fully and finally discharged, the mortgagee, at the Secretary’s, a State’s, or mortgagor’s request, must provide an acknowledged certificate in the required Secretary or State form. If filed with the Secretary, the Secretary must enter the information in the vessel-identification system under chapter 125.