Rule 96.17.Copy of Report and Judgment to be Recorded.

Rule 96.17 makes sure the outcome of a partition case gets reflected in the public land records, not just in the court file. Once the court has confirmed the commissioners' report and entered judgment, the clerk must obtain a certified copy of both the report and the judgment of confirmation and cause them to be recorded.

Recording happens in each county where any of the partitioned land is located. Partition cases sometimes involve land spanning more than one county, and the rule makes clear that recording in just one county is not enough; every county touched by the property needs its own recorded copy so title records there accurately reflect the new ownership.

This recording step matters because land titles are tracked county by county. Without a recorded copy of the report and judgment, a future buyer, lender, or title examiner searching the county records might not learn that a partition changed the ownership structure of the property. The rule closes that gap by requiring the certified copies to be filed and recorded as a matter of course.

Finally, the rule assigns the costs of certification and recording to be taxed as costs in the case, consistent with how the rest of the chapter allocates the expenses of the partition proceeding.