Montana Title 7. Local Government § 7-4-2617. Procedure to record documents

(1) When any instrument, paper, or notice authorized by law to be recorded is deposited for record in the office of the county clerk, as ex officio recorder, and accompanied by the required fee, the clerk must endorse upon the document the time it was received, noting the year, month, day, hour, and minute of its receipt, and the receipt of the instrument must be immediately entered in the county clerk and recorder's receipt book.

(2) If the printed, written, or typed words or numbers are considered by the clerk and recorder to be illegible and not legibly reproducible, the clerk and recorder must affix to the recorded document a statement that the document is illegible and not legibly reproducible.

(3) The county clerk shall record the instrument without delay, together with the acknowledgment, proofs, and certificates written upon or attached to the instrument and with the plats, surveys, schedule, and other attached papers, in the order and as of the time when the instrument was received for recording, and shall note at the foot of the record the exact time of its receipt.

(4) The county clerk shall also endorse upon each instrument, paper, or notice the time when and the book and pages or document number in which it is recorded and shall deliver it, upon request, to the party leaving the document for recording or to the party's order.