All conveyances, mortgages or other instruments of writing, heretofore made, or which may hereafter be made by any person or corporation, concerning any lands, tenements, hereditaments or property, or any estate or interest therein, lying or being within this commonwealth, heretofore acknowledged or proved, or hereafter acknowledged or proved, in the manner directed and provided by the laws of this commonwealth, before any deputy consul, commercial agents,¹ vice and deputy commercial agents, or consular agents of the United States, duly appointed for and exercising the functions of his office, in the place where such acknowledgment has been or may be taken, and certified under the public official seal of such deputy consul, commercial agents, vice and deputy commercial agents or consular agents, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, and be in like manner entitled to be recorded, as if the same had been duly acknowledged and proven before a notary public, or other officer, within this commonwealth, having authority to take such proofs or acknowledgments according to the existing laws of this commonwealth, and where any such instruments so acknowledged before such consular officers have heretofore been admitted to record in the proper office in this commonwealth, the record thereof shall be as good and valid as if they had been recorded subsequent to the passage of this act: Provided, That this act shall not apply to any case in which an action is now pending or has been heretofore judicially decided.