Unfettered access to online land records and the geographical coordinates of parcels is something that many counties have had for years, while others may take that access for granted. Just how important that access is may depend on who you ask, but title companies, construction companies, real estate agents, private businesses, and the general public all use these records frequently.
Teton County, WY got an idea of just how many people rely on their land records system when they announced a plan to take it offline indefinitely earlier this month. The announcement led to a flurry of activity, with local businesses prepping to physically send employees into the land records office to look up the information they need manually.
Calls bombarded the office and eventually the county was able to avoid the outage entirely a couple of days before it was due to occur.
Seeing the outpouring of inquiries certainly showed the value of the system that the county has in place. Without online access, the land records office was going to have to designate staff to answer questions, help people through the physical files, and just generally use their day in a way that they haven’t had to before.
It can certainly be an effort to get records made available online, particularly if a county has decades or even centuries of material that needs to be digitized. But we’re not at a point where we need land records staff to sit at a scanner, producing digital files, reviewing them for personally identifiable information, and manually redacting it. Those processes can be automated now, and if you’re interested, we’d be happy to show you how.
Usually when you’re thinking about entire system outages, it’s because of a cyberattack or large system upgrade, but the narrowly avoided outage in Teton County was the result of a single property change. A company purchased a three-story building that it wanted to remodel, and they decided to go through a complete plat vacation rather than the more time-consuming and costly process of amending the plat.
This decision proved to be so unusual, that while legal, the county contractor responsible for maintaining the online maps refused to record the vacation and took the property offline. This led to threats of lawsuits and the contractor sending a termination letter to the county. That’s why the county announced the unplanned outage and it’s unclear what actually solved the problem. While the contractor seemed more than willing to step away over the whole situation, the property was restored to the system and it remained online without incident.
It just goes to show you that it can be difficult to predict what the issues are that might throw your system out of whack, but vigilance is key given how many people rely on land records.
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.