This Michigan County Made Mortgaging Easier With Searchable Electronic Records
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New Consumer Financial Protection Bureau disclosure forms don’t have to slow transactions down.
Isabella County’s Register of Deeds kept electronic land records dating back to the 1940s for eight years, but this jurisdiction in Michigan’s central Lower Peninsula wanted more than 700,000 documents from the 1800s onward online and free to search.
While US Land Records maintains a viable, complete title search, an expanded keyword search better serves people looking to do comprehensive genealogical research from home.
Plus, new TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rules took effect Oct. 3, necessitating faster recording of mortgage documents. So in July, the county outfitted its digital database with Xerox’s Super Search program and mobile app, which include deeds, mortgages, liens, oil and gas leases, and court orders.
“Had we not had that implemented in time for the TRID changes, we would’ve been looking at a lot of phone calls bogging the things that needed to get done in the office down,” said Karen Jackson, the county’s register of deeds. “It’s self-service, and a lot of older clients doing genealogy research aren’t comfortable coming in to use an unfamiliar computer. This way, they can take their time, search whatever the want, make copies and the county still gets its copy fee.”
Oil and gas companies prevail in Isabella County, and the Register of Deeds’ office sometimes sees upwards of 30 industrialists pouring over records in the office at once. Tensions can mount among the intensely private group, Jackson said.
Super Search could cut the drama out of the process, using optical character recognition (OCR) to pull the text off every new document, indexing primary fields like “grantor” or “property” and scouring every word whether it’s indexed or not—all in the same day. That might not help a title searcher, Xerox Program Director Mark Nicks said in an interview. But the average user may only have an address, which isn’t typically a search field, he said.
A common problem is fictitious notary names being used, but Super Search can more easily identify fraudulent documents, Nicks said.
TRID law reforms have put pressure on mortgage title companies to have all the necessary documentation recorded within three days of holding a closing, or else face accumulative fines. In November 2013, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau merged disclosures and regulations in the Real Estate Settlement Procedures and Truth in Lending acts, with the resulting forms going into effect earlier this month.
Costs must be set at the time of closing, and if changed the entire reporting process starts over.
Neither title companies nor banks are left much time for paperwork, but Super Search lets them log on and index all documents quickly without missing a page or having to recalculate costs. If a local bank records the mortgage and a second bank in New York City does the assignment, the latter can ZIP the proper documents to the register as an e-recording.
Three years ago, Xerox teamed with Google on Super Search’s predecessor—Super Index. Google’s search appliance enabled rich text search rolled out in two large-population counties in the Detroit area: Macomb and Oakland.
“However, we found the algorithm we built is more geared toward registering deeds,” said Matt Armstrong, a Xerox senior account executive.
Tarrant County, Texas, home to the city of Fort Worth, was the first Super Search customer and Isabella was the second.
Monthly upkeep and site hosting fees vary by county, but the cost of $55,000 includes the OCR process, license and implementation.
Dave Nyczepir is News Editor for Government Executive’s Route Fifty.
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