While the rest of the industry flounders about wondering what to do after Judge Long’s land court decision, the people at the point of entry have just one question: to tax, or not to tax?

Registers of Deeds across the commonwealth are trying to figure out if new foreclosure deeds for properties that have to be reforeclosed upon means a second round of excise taxes will be due, according to Richard Howe, Register of Deeds at Middlesex North. Because a new deed has to be filed for a new foreclosure – as opposed to amending or removing the previous deed – a new tax stamp has to be added.

Howe said the registers haven’t really had any guidance on the issue, and for now they aren’t charging the taxes a second time.

The tricky part will be if properties that go back through the foreclosure process sell for a different price at auction. If the sale price is more than the original, the bank will owe more excise tax and have to pay the difference. If it’s for less, they’re entitled to a rebate.

But they won’t be able to get that tax rebate when they refile the deed.

“We don’t have a mechanism to refund money at the registry,” Howe said.

Instead, they’ll have to go through the state’s Division of Revenue.

The whole process will likely cause some confusion down the road for title examiners. Howe said best practices would be to include some sort of explanation as to why a second foreclosure deed, with a different tax amount, had to be refiled. But he finds it unlikely that banks will want to admit to any wrongdoing in writing.

“My sense is that practitioners are scrupulously avoiding anything that would make this a confirmatory deed,” Howe said. “But by leaving a sort of mystery, it condemns the future generation of title examiners to spending a lot of time trying to figure out what was going on.

“Not only is fixing this problem going to take a lot of effort, but the next time these properties sell, there is probably going to be a great deal of effort expended trying to explain what happened.”