168 LAWS OF MARYLAND. [CH. 141

afterwards paid, or any mortgage or assignment of mort-
gage defectively sworn to or not sworn to at all.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of
Maryland, That Sections 102, 103 and 107 of Article 21
of the Annotated Code of Maryland (1939 Edition), title
"Conveyancing", sub-title "Defective Conveyances", be and
they are hereby repealed and re-enacted with amendments
to read as follows:

102. All deeds of conveyance of property in this State
which may have been recorded without any certificate of
the clerk of any of the courts of this State accompanying
the acknowledgment thereof, in cases in which such cer-
tificates are necessary and proper, certifying to the official
character and signature of the justice of the peace taking
the same, and all deeds of conveyance of property in this
State which may have been recorded without the seal of
the notary public before whom the acknowledgment was
taken, having been first attached, when the grantor re-
sided in another State, and the acknowledgment was made
in that State, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as
if such defect and omission did not exist; provided, that
the execution and acknowledgment of such deeds in all
other respects conformed to the laws of this State, in such
cases made and provided; saying, nevertheless, the rights
of bona fide purchasers and 'incumbrances without notice
who may have become so prior to June 1, 1941.

103. All deeds, mortgages, releases, bonds of convey-
ances, bills of sale, chattel mortgages and all other convey-
ances, of real or personal property, or of any interest there-
in or agreements relating thereto which may have been
executed, acknowledged or recorded in the State subse-
quent to the passage of the Act of the General Assembly
of Maryland, passed at its January Session, 1858, Chapter
208, which may not have been acknowledged according to
the laws existing at the time of said acknowledgment,
or. which may not have been acknowledged before a proper
officer, or in which the certificate of acknowledgment is not
in the prescribed form, or in which the official character
of the officer taking the acknowledgment is not set out in
the body of the certificate, or has not been certified to as
required by law, or in which the conveyance has not been
witnessed to or sealed as required by law, or any deed here-
tofore made to or from a corporation prior to the payment
of bonus tax which was afterwards paid, shall be and the
same are hereby made valid, to all intents and purposes as
if the conveyances and agreements had been acknowledged,