Real property: marketable title.

Existing law permits a person to record an option to purchase real property in the chain of title for that property. Existing law provides that the option expires of record, within specified times, if no conveyance, contract, or other instrument giving notice of the exercise or extension of the option is recorded. This bill would provide, absent a conveyance, contract, or other instrument giving notice of the exercise or extension of an option, that if the expiration date of the option is ascertainable from the recorded instrument, the option expires 6 months after that expiration date. The bill would further provide that if the expiration date of the option is not ascertainable from the recorded instrument, or the recorded instrument indicates that the option provides no expiration date, the option expires 6 months after the date the instrument that creates or gives constructive notice of the option is recorded. These provisions would become operative on January 1, 2013. The bill would also make a technical correction.