§ 19.007.Method Not Exclusive

A savings provision keeping the alternatives open: the method provided by this chapter is in addition to other methods provided by law.

The chapter sets out a full court procedure — application, citation, hearing, order — and a reader could take that as the required route. This says it is one route among several.

The simplest alternative is in the next section. Rerecording the original document within four years of the loss is effective from the time of the original recordation, and requires no court involvement at all.

Where the original instrument still exists in someone’s hands, that is the better course, and it preserves priority as of the first recording.

Other routes exist outside this chapter. A certified copy from another source, a suit to quiet title, a trespass to try title action, or a corrected instrument executed by the parties may each supply what is missing, depending on what was lost and who is available to sign.

The choice usually turns on two things: whether the original document still exists, and whether the parties to it can be found and are cooperative. This chapter’s procedure is for the case where neither is true.

Note that the section does not rank the methods. There is no requirement to exhaust a simpler route first, so a party may use this chapter’s procedure even where another method might have worked.