Chap. 253.—-An ACT to amend and re-enact Section 3394 of the Code of Virginia,
as amended, relating to general and daily indexes in clerks’ offices. [S 194]

Approved March 16, 1944

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That section thirty-three hundred ninety-four of the Code of Vir-
ginia, aS amended, be amended and re-enacted, as follows:

Section 3394. General indexes for clerks’ offices; daily index.—
There shall be kept in every clerk’s office in this Commonwealth a modern,
family name, or ledgerized alphabetical key-table general index to all
deed books, miscellaneous liens, will books, judgment dockets and court
order books, and the clerk shall enter therein daily, with pen and best
quality of ink, or typewriter using indelible ribbons, all instruments ad-
mitted to record, indexing each instrument in the name or names of all
parties appearing therein who are thereby shown to be affected by the
instrument, using a separate line or column for each, and when any con-
veyance 1s made by a trustee or commissioner, or person other than the
owner, Or 1S a partition of lands, when the land is devised, it shall be
indexed in the name of such party or parties and also in the name of the
previous Owner or owners, as shown by the instrument. Every deed
of conveyance of real estate in which a vendor’s lien is reserved shall be
double indexed so as to show not only the conveyance from the grantor
to the grantee in the instrument, but also the reservation of the lien as if
it were a grant of same from grantee to the grantor by a separate instru-
ment and the fact of the lien shall be noted in the index. All deed books,
miscellaneous liens, will books, judgment dockets, and court order books
shall be numbered or otherwise adequately designated, and the clerk
upon the delivery of any writing to him for record required by law to b
recorded, shall duly index it upon the general index in the manner here
inbefore required, and when the writing has been actually transcribe
on the book shall add to the general index the number of the book 1
which, and the page on which the writing is recorded.

Provided that the clerk on receipt of any such writing for record ma:
immediately index it in a book to be known as the “daily index of instru
ments admitted to record”, and within ninety days after its admission t
record, the clerk shall index all such writings indexed in the daily inde:
in the appropriate general index as hereinbefore provided. The dail
index book shall, at all times, be kept in the office of the clerk, and con
veniently available for examination by the public. During the perioc
permitted for transfer from the daily index to the general index, indexins
in the daily index shall be a sufficient compliance with the requirement.
of this section as to indexing.

Provided that the judge of any court of record in term or in vaca
tion may make such order or orders as deemed advisable as to the tim
and method of indexing the order books in the clerk’s office of the cour
and shall have full power to dispense entirely with a general index to
ve books of the court.