Installment Land Contract

Legal information, not legal advice. Verify against the cited primary sources before acting. The instrument’s name, statutory definition, and minimum-payment threshold vary by jurisdiction and are frequently amended. Last verified: 2026-06-08.

• What it is: An installment land contract is a seller-financed real-estate sale in which the seller retains legal title as security while the buyer takes possession and pays the purchase price in installments, receiving a deed only after the price (or some stipulated portion of it) is paid in full. It is the umbrella term for an entire family of functionally identical instruments that go by different names in different states — contract for deed, land contract, bond for deed, bond for title, agreement for deed, agreement of sale, real estate contract, real property sales contract, and land installment contract among them. Whatever the label, the defining features are constant: (1) a single integrated contract of sale and financing; (2) the seller’s retention of legal title as the security device (in place of a mortgage or deed of trust); (3) the buyer’s immediate possession and equitable title (see equitable-title, equitable-conversion); and (4) deferred deed delivery conditioned on completion of payments. It is colloquially the “poor man’s mortgage” — financing without a bank, a title transfer, or (historically) a foreclosure.

• Why it matters for contract-for-deed: The name is not cosmetic. Whether a given deal is governed by a state’s installment-land-contract statute — and thus whether the buyer gets statutory disclosures, cure rights, recording protection, and a remedy other than raw forfeiture — usually turns on whether the instrument falls within the statutory definition of the named device. Several statutes draw that line by a minimum number of payments (e.g., North Carolina and Maryland: five or more), a time-to-convey floor (California and Ohio: conveyance not required within one year; Texas: deed not delivered within 180 days), or by enumerating covered synonyms so that drafters cannot re-label their way out of coverage (North Carolina; Illinois; North Dakota). A deal that misses the definition is an ordinary executory purchase contract or a lease-option, governed by different (often less protective) law. So “what is this instrument called, and what is the statutory definition here?” is the first question every operator and buyer must answer — it determines which body of law in the rest of this wiki applies.

• The defining features (constant across the synonyms):

  1. Title retained as security. The seller keeps legal title; the buyer holds equitable title under the doctrine of equitable conversion. This is what distinguishes the instrument from an outright deed-plus-mortgage and is the hinge on which the forfeiture-vs-foreclosure question turns. See equitable-title, equitable-conversion, forfeiture-vs-foreclosure.
  2. Installment payment of the price, typically with interest, over a term.
  3. Buyer in possession from inception, usually bearing taxes, insurance, and maintenance.
  4. Deferred conveyance — the deed passes only on full (or substantial) performance.
  5. Executory character — performance remains incomplete on both sides for the life of the contract; this drives its treatment in bankruptcy and on death/ divorce. See executory-contract.

• Why the synonyms proliferated: The device predates modern mortgage law and grew up in state practice rather than from a uniform act, so each jurisdiction named it locally. Some names are civil-law survivals (Louisiana’s bond for deed; Puerto Rico’s compraventa a plazos), some are historical common-law terms (the Southern bond for title; the New England bond for deed), and some are modern statutory coinages (Ohio/Maryland land installment contract; California’s real property sales contract; Washington/New Mexico real estate contract; Hawaii’s agreement of sale). They describe the same economic transaction. This wiki uses installment land contract / contract for deed as the umbrella and maps each state’s term below.

• Leading authority for “treat it by substance, not label”: Courts and statutes repeatedly look past the name to the security function. North Carolina’s statute expressly reaches any agreement “whether denominated a ‘contract for deed,’ ‘installment land contract,’ ‘land contract,’ ‘bond for title,’ or any other title.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 47H-1(1). Illinois sweeps in “a contract for deed, bond for deed, or any other sale or legal device.” 765 ILCS 67/5. The substance-over-form principle that an installment land contract is a security arrangement — and on default may be treated as a mortgage — is the through-line of skendzel-v-marshall-1973 and sebastian-v-floyd-1979; see forfeiture-vs-foreclosure.

▸ For Sellers / Operators — Before you draft, pin down two things in the state where the land sits: (1) the controlling name and statutory definition of the instrument, and (2) the definitional triggers that pull your deal in or out of the protective statute. Common triggers: a minimum-payment count (NC, MD: five or more payments), a time-to-convey floor (CA/OH: not within one year; TX: not within 180 days), or an enumerated-synonym clause that makes relabeling useless (NC, IL, ND). Getting inside the definition means you owe the statutory disclosures, recording duty, and notice-and-cure procedure — getting them wrong voids remedies and triggers the consumer-protection overlay (dodd-frank-seller-financing, safe-act-mlo). Getting outside the definition (a deal that conveys quickly, or a true lease-option) lands you under different law — confirm which, don’t assume. The label on your form controls nothing; the substance (retained title as security + installment price + possession) controls everything.

▸ For Buyers — The instrument you signed is, in substance, a financed purchase in which you already own an equitable interest — not a lease. Whether the state’s installment-land-contract statute protects you (disclosures, cure rights, recording, a foreclosure-style remedy instead of forfeiture) usually depends on the statutory definition, not the form’s title; a deal styled “lease-option” or “agreement of sale” may still qualify, and one styled “contract for deed” may fall outside if it conveys within the statutory window.

Jurisdiction map

Each row gives a jurisdiction’s controlling name for the installment land contract and the primary source that establishes the term or its statutory definition. Where a statute supplies a definition (minimum payments, time-to-convey, or enumerated synonyms), that is noted. Positions are stated only where a retrieved primary source supports the term; per-state default-remedy nuance lives on each [[state]] page and in forfeiture-vs-foreclosure.

Controlling / dominant name	Jurisdiction	Authority (primary source)
Contract for deed (statute enumerates synonyms: “contract for deed,” “installment land contract,” “land contract,” “bond for title,” or any other title; five or more payments)	north-carolina	N.C. Gen. Stat. § 47H-1(1)
Contract for deed (statute “includes installment land contracts”)	colorado	C.R.S. § 38-35-126(1)(b)
Contract for deed (statutory term)	oklahoma	Okla. Stat. tit. 16, § 11A
Contract for deed (statutory term; defined by reference at § 507.235)	minnesota	Minn. Stat. §§ 559.21, 507.235, subd. 1a(e)
Contract for deed (statutory term)	kansas	K.S.A. § 58-5201
Contract for deed (statutory/practice term)	montana · south-dakota · wyoming · vermont · missouri	MCA § 70-20-115 (montana); SDCL 21-50-1 (“executory contract for the sale of real property”) (south-dakota); prue-v-royer-2013 (vermont); Ryan v. Spiegelhalter, 64 S.W.3d 302 (Mo. 2002) (missouri)
Contract for deed / bond for deed / “other instrument for the future conveyance” (cancellation statute enumerates all three)	north-dakota	N.D.C.C. § 32-18-01
Installment sales contract — sweeps in “a contract for deed, bond for deed, or any other sale or legal device”	illinois	765 ILCS 67/5
Installment land contract (statutory term; the 1965 “Installment Land Contract Law”)	pennsylvania	68 Pa. Stat. §§ 901–910 (Act of 1965, P.L. 115)
Executory contract (Property Code umbrella; Subchapter D applies where deed not delivered within 180 days)	texas	Tex. Prop. Code §§ 5.062, 5.071
Land installment contract (statutory term; conveyance not required within one year, vendor retains title as security)	ohio	Ohio Rev. Code § 5313.01(A)
Land installment contract (statutory term; five or more installments)	maryland	Md. Code, Real Prop. § 10-101(b)
Real property sales contract (statutory term; conveyance not required within one year)	california	Cal. Civ. Code § 2985(a)
Real estate contract (statutory term; seller retains legal title as security)	washington	RCW 61.30.010
Real estate contract (dominant judicial/practice term)	new-mexico	buckingham-v-ryan-1998, 1998-NMCA-012
Uniform Real Estate Contract (URC) / installment land sale contract	utah	Utah practice; park-valley-corp-v-bagley-1981
Agreement of sale (statutory term in conveyance-tax, recording, and foreclosure statutes)	hawaii	HRS §§ 247-1, 502-85, 667-40
Land sale contract (statutory term; ORS ch. 93 forfeiture article)	oregon	ORS 93.905–93.945
Land sale installment contract (statutory term)	nevada	NRS 375.010(1)(d); NRS 598.0923
Agreement for sale / contract for deed (“contract” is the statutory umbrella; seller conveys equitable title)	arizona	A.R.S. § 33-741 et seq.
Bond for deed (civil-law statutory term; “a contract to sell real property … in installments”)	louisiana	La. R.S. 9:2941
Bond for title (controlling term; recording statute: “bond for title or other written contract for the sale of land”)	alabama · georgia	Ala. Code § 35-4-53 (alabama); O.C.G.A. §§ 44-2-6, 44-5-32 (georgia)
Bond for deed (historical term; treated as synonym of contract for deed / installment land contract)	new-hampshire · connecticut · maine	randall-v-riel-1983, 123 N.H. 757 (new-hampshire); Conn. Gen. Stat. § 49-5b (connecticut); 14 M.R.S. § 6203-F, 33 M.R.S. ch. 8 (maine)
Installment land contract / land contract (statutory & case-law term; vendor/vendee)	michigan · wisconsin · indiana · kentucky · west-virginia	MCL 600.5726 (michigan); Wis. Stat. ch. 708, § 846.30 (wisconsin); IC 32-21-5-1 (indiana); sebastian-v-floyd-1979 (kentucky)
Installment land contract / contract for deed (no statutory umbrella; common-law / judge-made)	new-york · new-jersey · idaho · alaska · massachusetts · district-of-columbia · rhode-island	bean-v-walker-1983, 95 A.D.2d 70 (new-york); Property Condition Disclosure Act, N.Y. RPL § 461 (new-york)
Real estate installment sales contract / real estate contract (recording & disclosure statutes)	iowa · mississippi · tennessee · south-carolina	Iowa Code §§ 558.46, 558.70, ch. 656 (iowa); Miss. Code § 89-1-503 (mississippi); Tenn. Code § 66-5-201 (tennessee); S.C. Code § 27-50-20 (south-carolina)
Residential executory real estate contract (statutory umbrella incl. lease-option / rent-to-own)	virginia	Va. Code § 55.1-353 et seq.
Agreement for deed / contract for deed (statute deems it a mortgage)	florida	Fla. Stat. §§ 697.01–697.02
Civil-law installment sale (compraventa a plazos; no “contract for deed” term — reservation-of-title or pacto de retro clauses)	puerto-rico	P.R. Civ. Code (2020) arts. on compraventa / reservation of title
No territory-specific statutory term — described by general common-law names (installment land contract, contract for deed, agreement of sale)	guam · us-virgin-islands · northern-mariana-islands · american-samoa	A.S.C.A. § 37.0211 (“agreement for the sale of real property”) (american-samoa)

What the naming split tells you

• Enumerated-synonym statutes (the anti-relabeling drafters). North Carolina, Illinois, and North Dakota define the instrument by listing its aliases so a drafter cannot escape the statute by choosing a different word. NC reaches any agreement “denominated a ‘contract for deed,’ ‘installment land contract,’ ‘land contract,’ ‘bond for title,’ or any other title.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 47H-1(1). ND’s cancellation chapter reaches a “contract for deed, bond for deed, or other instrument for the future conveyance.” N.D.C.C. § 32-18-01. IL covers “a contract for deed, bond for deed, or any other sale or legal device.” 765 ILCS 67/5. Sources: N.C. Gen. Stat. § 47H-1; 765 ILCS 67/5; N.D.C.C. § 32-18-01.

• Definitional thresholds (what pulls a deal inside the statute). Several states gate coverage on a measurable feature. Minimum payments: NC and MD require five or more installments (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 47H-1(1); Md. Real Prop. § 10-101(b)). Time-to-convey: CA’s “real property sales contract” is one that “does not require conveyance of title within one year” (Cal. Civ. Code § 2985(a)), and OH’s “land installment contract” is one “not required to be fully performed … within one year” (Ohio Rev. Code § 5313.01(A)); TX Subchapter D reaches an executory contract where the deed is not delivered within 180 days (Tex. Prop. Code § 5.062). A deal outside the threshold is governed by ordinary contract law, not the protective statute. Sources: Cal. Civ. Code § 2985(a); Ohio Rev. Code § 5313.01(A); Tex. Prop. Code § 5.062; N.C. Gen. Stat. § 47H-1(1).

• Civil-law outliers. Louisiana’s bond for deed is “a contract to sell real property … in installments” under La. R.S. 9:2941 — a contract to sell, not a sale, with no common-law forfeiture/foreclosure dichotomy. Puerto Rico has no “contract for deed” term at all; the functional equivalents are the civil-law compraventa a plazos with a reservation-of-title or repurchase clause. These jurisdictions answer the default-remedy question through civil-code machinery, not the Skendzel line. Source: La. R.S. 9:2941.

• Historical regional labels. Bond for title is the Southern term (AL, GA); bond for deed is the New England / Gulf-Coast historical term (NH, CT, ME, and — civil-law — LA); agreement of sale is Hawaii’s; real estate contract / real property sales contract are the Western statutory coinages (WA, NM, UT, CA). All name the same instrument. Sources: Ala. Code § 35-4-53; La. R.S. 9:2941; HRS § 247-1; RCW 61.30.010; Cal. Civ. Code § 2985(a).

Primary sources (retrieved 2026-06-08)

• N.C. Gen. Stat. § 47H-1 (Definitions) — “contract for deed” reaches any agreement “whether denominated a ‘contract for deed,’ ‘installment land contract,’ ‘land contract,’ ‘bond for title,’ or any other title,” with “five or more payments” and seller retaining title as security. https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/ByChapter/Chapter_47H.html
• Cal. Civ. Code § 2985(a) — “real property sales contract” is an agreement to convey title “upon the satisfaction of specified conditions … and that does not require conveyance of title within one year from the date of formation.” https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=2985.
• Ohio Rev. Code § 5313.01(A) — “land installment contract” is an executory agreement “not required to be fully performed … within one year,” vendor agrees to convey, vendee pays in installments “while the vendor retains title … as security.” https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-5313.01
• Minn. Stat. § 559.21 — uses the statutory term “contract for deed” and adopts the definition “given in section 507.235, subdivision 1a, paragraph (e)” (an executory contract for conveyance of residential real property under which the seller provides financing and the purchaser has a right to possession). https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/559.21 · https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/507.235
• Tex. Prop. Code § 5.062 — Subchapter D applies to an executory contract for conveyance of a residence; excludes contracts providing for deed delivery within 180 days of execution. https://texas.public.law/statutes/tex._prop._code_section_5.062
• La. R.S. 9:2941 — “bond for deed” is “a contract to sell real property, in which the purchase price is to be paid by the buyer to the seller in installments and in which the seller after payment of a stipulated sum agrees to deliver title to the buyer.” https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=107307
• RCW 61.30.010 — “real estate contract” is “any written agreement for the sale of real property in which legal title to the property is retained by the seller as security for payment of the purchase price” (excluding earnest-money agreements and options). https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=61.30.010
• N.D.C.C. § 32-18-01 — reaches an owner who executes “a contract for deed, bond for deed, or other instrument for the future conveyance” of real estate or equity therein (cancellation requires written notice). Confirmed verbatim from the official ndlegis.gov Chapter 32-18 text. https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t32c18.pdf
• 765 ILCS 67/5 (Installment Sales Contract Act, Definitions) — “‘Installment sales contract’ or ‘contract’ means any contract or agreement, including a contract for deed, bond for deed, or any other sale or legal device whereby a seller agrees to sell and the buyer agrees to buy a residential real estate, in which the consideration for the sale is payable in installments for a period of at least one year after the date of sale, and the seller continues to have an interest or security for the purchase price ….” Confirmed verbatim from the official ilga.gov section text. https://www.ilga.gov/Documents/legislation/ilcs/documents/076500670K5.htm

Meta

• needs_verification:
  • Colorado C.R.S. § 38-35-126(1)(b) — “contract for deed to real property … includes installment land contracts” is drawn from the colorado page; the official Colorado statute PDF and mirrors were not machine-readable this run. Confirm verbatim.
  • Pennsylvania Installment Land Contract Law (1965) — the Act’s title and term “installment land contract” are confirmed by the pennsylvania page; the official palegis.us text was behind a host redirect this run. Confirm the exact section numbers (68 Pa. Stat. §§ 901 et seq.) and definitional language.
  • Maryland Real Prop. § 10-101(b) “five or more” installments, Hawaii HRS §§ 247-1 / 502-85 / 667-40 “agreement of sale,” Oregon ORS 93.905 et seq. “land sale contract,” Nevada NRS 375.010 / 598.0923, Arizona A.R.S. § 33-741 et seq., Virginia Va. Code § 55.1-353, and the territorial statutory references — each term is taken from the corresponding (verified) jurisdiction page but its definitional section was not re-retrieved verbatim on this concept-page run. Confirm the exact section text on the state page before quoting.
  • Ryan v. Spiegelhalter, 64 S.W.3d 302 (Mo. 2002) — the decision is verified real (Mo. Supreme Court, 2002; retrieved from courtlistener.com and confirmed via the official-reporter cite on Justia/FindLaw) and uses the term “Contract for Deed.” The cite is sound; it is flagged only because no dedicated case page exists yet (cases/ryan-v-spiegelhalter-2002 is absent), so it is referenced inline rather than as a [[case]] link.
• open_questions:
  • Where a state defines coverage by minimum payments, does a lump-sum or short-installment deal fall outside the protective statute entirely, or is it caught by common-law equitable-mortgage doctrine? (Normalize per state.)
  • Do the time-to-convey floors (CA/OH one year; TX 180 days) measure from contract formation or from first possession? Confirm on each state page.
  • For the lease-option / rent-to-own borderline (VA’s “residential executory real estate contract”; TX Subchapter D), when does a lease with a purchase option get recharacterized as an installment land contract? See subject-to-financing, executory-contract.
• cross_links: forfeiture-vs-foreclosure · equitable-conversion · equitable-title · executory-contract · skendzel-v-marshall-1973 · sebastian-v-floyd-1979 · north-carolina · california · ohio · minnesota · texas · louisiana · washington · north-dakota · illinois · colorado · maryland · hawaii
• changelog:
  • 2026-06-08 — Page created. Defined the installment land contract as the umbrella term and its synonym family (contract for deed, land contract, bond for deed, bond for title, agreement for deed, agreement of sale, real estate contract, real property sales contract, land installment contract); set out the four defining features; built the 56-jurisdiction naming map from the verified jurisdiction pages and confirmed the lead definitional citations (NC § 47H-1, CA § 2985, OH § 5313.01, MN §§ 559.21/507.235, TX § 5.062, LA R.S. 9:2941, WA 61.30.010, ND § 32-18-01) by retrieving the primary sources this run; flagged IL, CO, PA, MD, HI, OR, NV, AZ, VA, KS, the territories, and Ryan v. Spiegelhalter under needs_verification.
  • 2026-06-08 — Adversarial citation-verification pass. Re-retrieved and confirmed verbatim from primary sources: NC § 47H-1, CA § 2985(a), OH § 5313.01(A), LA R.S. 9:2941, WA 61.30.010, ND § 32-18-01, MN §§ 559.21/507.235(1a)(e), TX § 5.062(c). Newly confirmed verbatim and promoted out of needs_verification: 765 ILCS 67/5 (official ilga.gov text). Independently confirmed the existence and cited holding/term of every case in the map: Bean v. Walker, 95 A.D.2d 70 (1983); Buckingham v. Ryan, 1998-NMCA-012, 124 N.M. 498; Randall v. Riel, 123 N.H. 757 (1983); Park Valley Corp. v. Bagley, 635 P.2d 65 (Utah 1981); Prue v. Royer, 2013 VT 12; and Ryan v. Spiegelhalter, 64 S.W.3d 302 (Mo. 2002). Also confirmed real and accurately cited: Okla. tit. 16 § 11A, K.S.A. § 58-5201 (Kansas Contract for Deed Act), Fla. Stat. § 697.01. All [[wiki-link]] targets resolve. No fabricated or unsupported citation found; CO/PA/MD/HI/OR/NV/AZ/VA/KS and the territories remain honest needs_verification (term confirmed via the verified state pages; definitional section text not re-retrieved verbatim here).

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Disclaimer. This page is legal information, not legal advice, and may be out of date. The name, statutory definition, and coverage threshold of an installment land contract vary by jurisdiction and are frequently amended. Confirm the current statute — and whether your specific instrument falls within its definition — before drafting, recording, enforcing, or signing, and consult a licensed attorney in the relevant jurisdiction.