Massachusetts General Laws

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 36, § 1 (2026)

Registry districts

✓ text as last checked Sept. 2026 (this copy records no edition or section history)
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Section 1. The counties of Berkshire, Bristol, Essex, Middlesex and Worcester are for the registry of deeds severally divided into the following districts:

In Berkshire, the middle district, with its office in Pittsfield, comprising Pittsfield, Becket, Dalton, Hinsdale, Lee, Lenox, Otis, Peru, Richmond, Stockbridge, Tyringham and Washington; the northern district, with its office in Adams, that portion of the county lying north of the middle district; and the southern district, with its office in Great Barrington, that portion of the county lying south of the middle district.

In Bristol, the southern district, with its office in New Bedford, comprising, New Bedford, Acushnet, Dartmouth, Fairhaven and Westport, the Fall River district, with its office in Fall River, comprising Fall River, Freetown, Somerset and Swansea; and the northern district, with its office in Taunton, the remainder of said county.

In Essex, the northern district, with its office in Lawrence, comprising Lawrence, Andover, Methuen and North Andover; the southern district, with its office in Salem, the remainder of said county.

In Middlesex, the northern district, with its office in Lowell, comprising Lowell, Billerica, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Dracut, Dunstable, Tewksbury, Tyngsborough, Westford and Wilmington; the southern district, with its office in Cambridge, the remainder of said county.

In Worcester, the northern district, with its office in Fitchburg, comprising Fitchburg, Ashburnham, Leominster, Lunenburg and Westminster; the Worcester district, with its office in Worcester, the remainder of said county.

Each of the other counties of the commonwealth shall have an office for the registry of deeds in a shire town thereof.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 3 cases, 1973–2013 · leading case: Bay State Harness Horse R. & B. Ass'n v. PPG Indus., Inc., 365 F. Supp. 1299 (D. Mass. 1973).
Bay State Harness Horse R. & B. Ass'n v. PPG Indus., Inc., 365 F. Supp. 1299 (D. Mass. 1973). “Mass.Gen.Laws ch. 36, §§ 1, 2. It is manifest that the statutes involved in these cases, viz.”
S & H Petroleum Corp. v. Register of Deeds, 707 N.E.2d 843 (Mass. App. Ct. 1999). “See G. L. c. 36, §§ 1 et seq., which enumerate the duties of registers of deeds and impose no such duty.”
Goldsmith v. Woodman (In re Woodman), 497 B.R. 668 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2013). “Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 36, §§ 1 and 2. For registered land, filings are made in the Land Court which maintains its own registries at the same locations as the registries of deeds.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.