The Recorder of Deeds has been an important part of American history dating back to its inception, creating a centralized location for information regarding real property rights. More than just recording who has purchased a particular property, land records offices and their recorders also keep track of other documents with an impact on a property like liens or plat maps.
This isn’t a position that exists solely in the United States. Countries like the Philippines and South Africa have deed registries as well. Recorders may also be referred to with a variety of different names depending on where they are located. Some common variations on the title include the Register or Registrar of Deeds. This is similar to the position of Clerk of Courts that can have unique names like Prothonotary for those in Pennsylvania.
Recorders are generally elected officials that serve four-year terms in the United States, with no limit on the number of times someone can serve. While some recorders have responsibilities in places like elections or vital records, they are primarily responsible for the crucial task of documenting the chain of title on land records. Having a deed properly recorded is one of the most important things a homeowner can do as the land records office is the first place to go when determining legal ownership of a property. It’s a big enough deal that thieves have used property records as an avenue for selling or taking out fraudulent loans against property that isn’t theirs. Luckily, hands-on recorders have created alert systems to notify homeowners of actions involving their title.
The recorder of deeds and their office are responsible for not just documenting records, but for providing access to them as well. In many counties, this means managing an unpredictable influx of patrons, fulfilling requests to physically locate and examine the records.
Some, but not all, counties have moved to systems that facilitate online records access. Many of these counties were required to do so from legislation at the state level, others were able to take advantage of pandemic-era funding during restricted in-person availability, and then there are just counties with tech-inclined recorders who want their office on the cutting edge. While moving to digital records can free up staff time and provide better access to files, recorders once again take on a crucial duty as they must ensure all personally identifiable information like a social security number has been redacted from the images.
Recorders and land records offices are often involved in more than just their generally prescribed duties, including projects like the title notification services. St. Louis County, Missouri recently received an award for their work in proactively resolving title issues and working with vacant properties. A museum in Wilkes County, North Carolina is hosting a seminar on the types of genealogical and historical information that can only be found in land records. The Montgomery County, Pennsylvania recorder hosts an annual veterans necessities drive. Recently, we’ve also seen numerous county recorders take on the legacy of discriminatory restrictive covenants, finding and removing the harmful language from their records.
It all adds up to a difficult job that requires intense attention to detail. Because of the hundreds of years of files most offices have ownership of, their projects can be massive. It’s one thing to make records available online on a go-forward basis, but orders of magnitude more difficult to work through what amounts to millions of pages of history.
For projects of this size, it’s simply not reasonable to expect staff to examine each page by hand, at least not if a recorder is aiming to digitize their records over the course of several terms. Whether you’re trying to remove information that could lead to identity theft or searching for antiquated language, we recommend using an automated redaction solution like ID Shield. ID Shield is redaction software that converts your images to text using optical character recognition, then applies rulesets honed on billions of documents to locate and redact the data you’re searching for. Your trained staff can verify redactions or we can simply deliver your redacted images right back to you. If you’re interested in learning more about how Extract helps recorders of deeds, please reach out.
About the Author: Chris Mack
Chris is a Marketing Manager at Extract with experience in product development, data analysis, and both traditional and digital marketing. Chris received his bachelor’s degree in English from Bucknell University and has an MBA from the University of Notre Dame. A passionate marketer, Chris strives to make complex ideas more accessible to those around him in a compelling way.