As used in the Escrow Company Act:
A. "director" means the director of the division;
B. "division" means the financial institutions division of the regulation and licensing department;
C. "escrow" means any transaction in which one person, for the purpose of effecting the sale, transfer, encumbrance or lease of real or personal property to another person or for the purpose of making payments under any encumbrance of the property, delivers any written instrument, money, evidence of title to real or personal property or other thing of value to a third person to be held by that third person until the happening of a specified event or the performance of a prescribed condition, when the instrument, money, evidence of title or thing of value is to be delivered by the third person to a grantee, grantor, promisee, promisor, obligee, obligor, bailee or bailor or to any of that person's agents or employees, pursuant to the written escrow instructions;
D. "escrow company" means any person engaged in the business of receiving escrows for deposit or delivery for compensation who is required to be licensed under the Escrow Company Act;
E. "licensee" means a person holding a valid license as an escrow agent; and
F. "person" means an individual, cooperative, association, company, firm, partnership, corporation or other legal entity.
History: Laws 1983, ch. 135, § 3; 2015, ch. 135, § 2.
ANNOTATIONSThe 2015 amendment, effective July 1, 2015, amended the definition of division to mean the financial institutions division of the regulation and licensing department; in Subsection B, after "division of the", deleted "commerce and industry" and added "regulation and licensing"; and in Subsection C, after "encumbrance of", deleted "such" and added "the", and after "bailor or to any of", deleted "his" and added "that person's".
Temporary provisions. — Laws 2015, ch. 135, § 9 provided that an escrow company licensed pursuant to the Escrow Company Act that, prior to the effective date of Laws 2015, ch. 135, §§ 1 to 8 (July 1, 2015), was not required to file a surety or other bond with the director of the financial institutions division of the regulation and licensing department shall have until January 1, 2016 to comply with the provisions of Section 58-22-10 NMSA 1978.