Imagine you are getting ready to purchase a new home, or refinance an existing home, and are unable to lock in at the lowest interest rate or your purchase is delayed because ownership is unable to be documented. This is just one of the issues the Property Records Industry Association (PRIA) is working on. The group just wrapped up its winter conference in Austin, Texas last week. As always, there were a lot
of great topics covered over the three days. I’m going to focus on this topic since hits closest to home for me.
To be honest, the title – State of the Redaction Movement Around the Country – is a little misleading, because the larger issue has to do with current and pending privacy legislation that is making it difficult for
title insurance underwriters, title searchers, and lenders (who rely on the accuracy of the land records) to perform their jobs. I’ve provided a link to the American Land Title Association’s Whitepaper from 2019 for people to read about the unintended consequences that have been created as a result of removing certain individuals and their property address from the records. https://www.alta.org/news/news.cfm?20190910-ALTA-Whitepaper-Addresses-Redaction-of-Info-in-Public-Land-Records
Safe at Home laws have been around for years to protect victims of actual or threatened domestic abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse, stalking, or trafficking. The intent is for those who fear for their safety to
be able to maintain a private and confidential home, work, or school address. In most cases the program is administered by the Secretary of State. To give you a sense for the number of requests a county might receive – Hennepin County, MN (Minneapolis) has received 26 notices affecting 28 properties.
What has happened recently is that several states have expanded the list of protected groups. Protected groups could include victims of domestic violence, law enforcement officers, military servicemembers, first
responders, judges, legislators, and other public figures. In Florida there are nearly 50 different protected parties. The panel at the conference had recorders from Florida, Minnesota, Ohio, Colorado and Arkansas as well as a representative from the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS). There were a lot of interesting things that came out of the presentation. Here are just a few:
Florida’s legislation has no sunset date so once a record is redacted you can’t go back and un-redact
Applies to other properties a person may own even if not their personal residence
Also includes adult children of protected parties
In some cases, counties are also removing the index data
This should not be done because the title searcher has no way of knowing a document even exists
Could lead to fraud if protected parties redact judgements, etc.
Can present problems with subsequent documents like Mechanic’s Liens
For those that aren’t in the industry, a Mechanic’s Lien is usually filed by a contractor that performed work on a property but was never paid. The lien is a remedy of sort because the property owner will likely have
to resolve it if they ever plan to sell the property. However, in this instance if the original record is removed or redacted – how can a contractor file a Mechanic’s Lien?
PRIA has put together a workgroup that includes recorders, land records systems vendors, redaction vendors, title companies, etc. to provide recommendations on how to best address the situation. The first goal of the workgroup is to update the status of existing redaction laws to protect non-public information like Social Security Numbers, Driver’s License Numbers, Bank and Financial account information – see link to the PRIA Resource Library for 2014 Redaction Best Practices Whitepaper: https://www.pria.us/i4a/doclibrary/index.cfm?pageid=3281&showTitle=1&widgetPreview=0&page_version=
The second objective, and biggest reason for the group, is to recommended best practices on how to address privacy legislation. I’ve briefly mentioned Florida and Minnesota, but the other panelists reported
Arkansas is considering legislation like Florida. Ohio started with police officers but has expanded, Colorado’s legislation only applies to online records and the originals can still be obtained at the courthouse. The State of Washington is considering the Washington Privacy Act which could become the most comprehensive privacy law in the country. It sounds like Maryland has proposed legislation that several of the panelists believe could be a workable model because it has a carveout for land records, but they need to do more research before making that determination.
The reality is that even the protected parties are often unaware of how removing their information from the public land records can impact them when trying to buy or sell property. I am a member of the workgroup
and look forward to working with PRIA to determine how technology vendors can help once they decide on best practices. There must be a way for recorders to manage the list and make sure that once data is removed from public viewing or redacted it isn’t impossible to un-redact. Whether using OCR technology to
monitor a database stored in the land records management system to identify affected records, redacting information, or finding some alternative solution.
If you’d like to learn more about our relationship with PRIA or have a redaction project of your own, please reach out.
About the Author: Troy Burke
With 30 years of experience providing clients with stellar service and strategic solutions for growth and development, Troy is committed to ensuring his customers receive the highest quality solution, training and support with every implementation. He frequently speaks on the topic of redaction and is actively involved with National Association of Court Management, Property Records Industry Association and several other government organizations.