HILL, Justice.
[¶ 1] The United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Wyoming certified a question to this Court concerning the effect of two Wyoming statutes on a debtor's mortgage. Specifically, the bankruptcy court asks whether the mortgage must comply with Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 34-2-122 and 34-2-123. We answer the question in the negative.
[¶ 2] The United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Wyoming certified the following question to this Court:
[¶ 3] We draw the facts from the Statement of Undisputed Stipulated Facts filed by the parties in the bankruptcy adversary proceeding and referred to this Court with the certified question.
[¶ 4] On January 26, 2006, Betty J. Gifford (Debtor) borrowed $438,400.00 from The Jackson State Bank & Trust (JSB) to finance a real estate purchase in Pinedale, Wyoming. Debtor signed a promissory note (Note) agreeing to repay the loan and secured that loan with a mortgage (Mortgage). JSB sold the loan to Countrywide Bank, N.A. (Countrywide), and JSB endorsed the Note, making it payable to Countrywide. Countrywide later merged with and into Bank of America, N.A. (BANA), and BANA remains the current owner of the Note.
[¶ 5] On February 1, 2006, the Mortgage was recorded in the Sublette County land records. An assignment of the Mortgage from JSB to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) was recorded in the Sublette County land records several days later on February 13, 2006.
[¶ 6] The recorded assignment of the Mortgage to MERS did not describe MERS as an agent or as acting in a representative capacity. The recorded assignment instead provided:
[¶ 7] On October 21, 2009, MERS assigned the Mortgage to BAC Home Loans Servicing, LP (BAC), which was servicing the loan on behalf of BANA. That assignment was recorded in the Sublette County land records on October 27, 2009, and again the recorded assignment did not describe BAC as an agent or as acting in a representative capacity. The recorded assignment reads:
[¶ 8] The Debtor defaulted on her home loan by failing to make the monthly payment due on April 1, 2009, and failing to cure that default. Several months later, on December 11, 2009, Debtor and her husband filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition. On November 30, 2010, the bankruptcy trustee initiated an adversary proceeding against BAC, seeking to avoid the Mortgage for, among other reasons, its failure to comply with the requirements of Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 34-2-122 and 34-2-123. On August 7, 2012, the bankruptcy court filed a Certification Order from the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Wyoming to the Supreme Court of the State of Wyoming requesting that this Court answer the certified question. The request was limited to the question of whether the Mortgage must comply with the requirements of §§ 34-2-122 and 123, and did not include certification of the trustee's other challenges to enforceability of the Mortgage. On August 29, 2012, this Court issued a Notice of Agreement to Answer Certified Question.
[¶ 9] The bankruptcy trustee argues that because the recorded assignments of the Mortgage, first to MERS and then to BAC, did not identify with specificity the terms of the agency relationship between the holder of the Note and the holder of the Mortgage, the recorded assignment did not comply with §§ 34-2-122 and 123. The trustee further argues that the failure to comply with these statutory terms renders the Mortgage unenforceable. We disagree that Sections 122 and 123 operate in the manner urged by the bankruptcy trustee and instead conclude as BAC urges that the purpose and effect of these provisions is to bar an undisclosed or improperly disclosed principal from questioning an agent's authority to transfer a property interest to a third party. Given the plain language of the provisions and their narrow and specific purpose, we conclude that the provisions are not implicated in this case, and the Mortgage was not required to comply with Sections 122 and 123.
[¶ 10] Our analysis is one of statutory interpretation and it thus begins with the language of Sections 122 and 123 and our rules of statutory interpretation. Section 122 provides, in relevant part:
Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 34-2-122 (LexisNexis 2011).
[¶ 11] Section 123 provides, in relevant part:
Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 34-2-123 (LexisNexis 2011).
[¶ 12] In carrying out our task of interpreting Sections 122 and 123, we use the following well established rules of statutory interpretation:
Redco Constr. v. Profile Props., LLC, 2012 WY 24, ¶ 26, 271 P.3d 408, 415-416 (Wyo. 2012) (quoting Cheyenne Newspapers, Inc. v. Bldg.Code Bd. of Appeals, 2010 WY 2, ¶ 9, 222 P.3d 158, 162 (Wyo.2010)). Even if a statute is unambiguous, this Court has recognized the benefit of looking to a statute's legislative history, however sparse that might be, to confirm the legislative intent reflected in the statute's plain language. See Parker Land & Cattle Co. v. Wyoming Game & Fish Comm'n, 845 P.2d 1040, 1043-44 (Wyo.1993); see also Union Pac. Res. Co. v. Dolenc., 2004 WY 36, ¶ 15, 86 P.3d 1287, 1292 (Wyo.2004); Wilson v. State, 841 P.2d 90, 94 (Wyo.1992).
[¶ 13] In the present case, the requirements of Sections 122 and 123 are not implicated for two reasons. First, by their plain terms, the requirements of Sections 122 and 123 apply only to instruments in which the grantee is described as a trustee, agent, or as serving in any other representative capacity. See § 34-2-122 ("In all instruments conveying real estate, or interests therein, in which the grantee is described as trustee, agent, or as in any other representative capacity, ..."); § 34-2-123 ("All instruments of conveyance to, or transfer, encumbrance or release of, lands or any interest therein within the state of Wyoming, which name a grantee in a representative capacity, or name a trust as grantee, ..."). It is undisputed that the recorded assignments of the Mortgage, first to MERS and then to BAC, do not identify MERS or BAC as a trustee, agent, or as serving in any other representative capacity. Sections 122 and
[¶ 14] We further reject application of Sections 122 and 123 to the Mortgage assignments in this case because the statutes are notice statutes intended to apply in circumstances that simply are not presented by this case. By their plain terms, the statutes operate to protect third parties from conflicting claims of principals and agents (or the conflicting claims of beneficiaries/trustees, or of the parties to any other representative relationship). The statutes expressly provide that the effect of a lack of full disclosure of a principal or beneficiary is that the undisclosed principal or other beneficiary is thereafter barred from questioning the agent's authority to sell, transfer or release the property. In particular, Section 122 directs that "[w]henever the grantee shall execute and deliver a conveyance, transfer, encumbrance or release of the property in a representative capacity,
[¶ 15] The plain language of Sections 122 and 123 is consistent with the legislature's expressed purpose when it originally enacted the provisions in 1947:
1947 Wyo. Sess. Laws, Ch. 154; see also In re Estate of Lohrie, 950 P.2d 1030, 1033 (Wyo.1997).
[¶ 16] By their plain terms and stated legislative purpose, Sections 122 and 123 do not invalidate or render unenforceable a mortgage simply because the recorded assignment of that mortgage fails to include the statutorily mandated description of the principal/agent relationship. Rather, the statutes operate to protect a third party who deals with the agent. Thus, if the agent transfers the property to a third party, the third party is protected against a claim by the agent's principal challenging the agent's authority to make the transfer. See Lagae v. Lackner, 996 P.2d 1281, 1285-86 (Colo.2000) (holding similar Colorado statute to be a notice statute with the purpose of eliminating duty of inquiry and preventing an undisclosed beneficiary from contesting the interest of a subsequent taker); see also Trierweiler, 484 B.R. at 794-95 (holding Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 34-2-122 is a notice statute and trustee's attempt to invalidate mortgage was outside statute's intended purpose).
[¶ 17] Based upon the stipulated facts, this case does not present the circumstances Sections 122 and 123 are intended to address. There was no transfer by MERS or BAC to a third party, and there is no challenge by an undisclosed or improperly disclosed principal to the actions of MERS or BAC. Stated simply, this case presents no conflicting claims by a principal and an agent from which a third party needs protection, and the statutes therefore do not apply.
[¶ 18] We answer the certified question in the negative. Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 34-2-122 and 123 are notice statutes intended to protect third parties from conflicting claims of a principal and agent. The Mortgage at issue in this case was not required to comply with Sections 122 and 123 because a) the recorded assignment of the Mortgage did not identify the grantee as acting in a representative capacity; and b) there were no conflicting
Royal v. First Interstate Bank (In re Trierweiler), 484 B.R. 783, 794-95 (10th Cir. BAP 2012) (quoting Mortg. Elec. Registration Sys. v. Neb. Dep't of Banking & Fin., 270 Neb. 529, 704 N.W.2d 784, 785 (2005)) (footnotes omitted).