Section 290. Definitions; effect of article

1. The term "real property," as
  used  in  this  article, includes lands, tenements and hereditaments and
  chattels real, except a lease for a term not exceeding three years.
    2. The term "purchaser" includes every person to whom  any  estate  or
  interest  in real property is conveyed for a valuable consideration, and
  every assignee of a mortgage, lease or other conditional estate.
    3. The term "conveyance" includes every written instrument,  by  which
  any  estate  or  interest  in  real  property  is  created, transferred,
  mortgaged or assigned, or by which the title to any real property may be
  affected, including an instrument in execution of a power, although  the
  power  be  one  of  revocation  only,  and  an  instrument postponing or
  subordinating a mortgage lien; except a will, a lease  for  a  term  not
  exceeding three years, an executory contract for the sale or purchase of
  lands,  and  an instrument containing a power to convey real property as
  the agent or attorney for the owner of such property.
    4. The term "recording officer" means the county clerk of the  county,
  except in a county having a register, where it means the register of the
  county.
    5.  "Recording"  or  "recorded"  means  the entry, at length, upon the
  pages of the proper record books in a plain and legible hand writing, or
  in print or in symbols of drawing or by photographic process  or  partly
  in  writing,  partly in printing, partly in symbols of drawing or partly
  by photographic process or by  any  combination  of  writing,  printing,
  drawing  or  photography  or  either  or any two of them. "Recording" or
  "recorded"   also   means   the   reproduction   of    instruments    by
  microphotography  or other photographic process on film which is kept in
  appropriate files.
    6. This article does not apply to leases for life  or  lives,  or  for
  years,  heretofore  made,  of lands in either of the counties of Albany,
  Ulster, Sullivan, Herkimer, Dutchess, Columbia, Delaware or Schenectady.