More Circuit Land Records Go Online

Scott County in Virginia’s far southwest has joined its pioneer neighbor, Wise County, in making courthouse land records accessible over the Internet.

Marriage documents, judgments, land records and wills going back to 1992 were put online by Scott County Circuit Court about three months ago.

Meanwhile, Richmond County in the Northern Neck has the necessary hardware installed and will be ready to put land records online in about a month.

And if everything stays on schedule, Fairfax County’s real estate community also is about a month away from being able to access county land records over the ‘Net.

Circuit by circuit, Virginia’s courts are phasing in electronic access to files you used to have to go to court to see. Each system is unique, created by different vendors and shaped by the preferences of the clerk in charge.

Already, Wise County has expanded its Web-accessible records to include judgments, marriages and probate, as well as a link to the tax department’s assessments and list of delinquencies. Wise also has incorporated a 50-year land title transfer, which traces ownership of a property over the last half-century.

Genealogists are delighted. In fact, even though Wise County’s land records database currently is accessed for free, the court is making more money than ever before from photocopying, because people tracing family trees are clamoring for the marriage and probate documents they find on the Web.

Realtors and title researchers are delighted, as well. In fact, the Realtors Association of Virginia was instrumental in getting through legislation needed to spend money from the state’s Technology Trust Fund to pay for modernization of land records. So says Wise County Circuit Court Clerk J. Jack Kennedy Jr., who has led the movement statewide as well as in his own county.

But what’s in it for lawyers?

Probably not title searches, for most. Few lawyers are even trained in title examinations these days, according to one who is — Courtland L. Traver of McLean.

Sure, a lawyer could conduct a title search more quickly on the computer in his office than he can by going to the courthouse. But “nobody is going to pay me $350 an hour to sit at my computer and do a title search,” Traver said. It’s less expensive to hand the job over to a title agent.

But lawyers are finding ways of taking advantage of electronic access to land records in their practices — and not just dirt lawyers, either.

On those occasions when a lawyer has to go to the court file, “It’s really a life-saving device, truly,” said Jeffrey A. Sturgill of Wise, who has been using Kennedy’s system since it went online in May of 1996.

There’s no more waiting in line while the clerk helps someone else. There’s no more waiting for your turn at the file. You can look up a deed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “It’s readily available to us,” Sturgill said.

Another Wise County lawyer, Gregory D. Gilbert, also has found the system useful in his real estate practice, even though his office is across the street from the courthouse.

Now, before Gilbert hands a case off to a title examiner, he prints off the title history for the last three or four transfers, to give the examiner some background. He uses the system to advise clients about property values, to look up addresses, and to get work done on weekends.

Traver anticipates that online access to land records particularly will help in commercial real estate matters. Lawyers more easily will be able to establish who owns properties, what liens are on the properties and what the comparative values of properties are.

The access will probably speed up transactions in both commercial and residential closings, particularly when electronic filing becomes possible, Traver said. Realtors complain about the time it takes to close a deal under the old system. Now, Fairfax aims to copy and return land records within a day of receipt.

Eric Hauser, a Virginia Beach real estate lawyer who has served on several technology committees, looks forward to being able to more easily review the title insurance binder for his banker clients. “If a lawyer gets a title insurance binder and wants to check a reference, or doesn’t have a copy of a document, it would be nice to have,” he said.

Lawyers in other specialties will find the access valuable, too, Hauser said. Lawyers who handle condemnation work or foreclosures, domestic relations law-yers trying to establish property values or track down liens, lawyers working on land-use cases or checking out easements on a property and estate planners can all benefit from the modernization.

How much time does it take to learn to use these systems?

Jane Deliee, chief deputy clerk in Fairfax County, volunteered to be one of the first to learn Fairfax’s new system because, as she told the trainers, “I am completely computer-illiterate. I will be the off-the-street person.” When she went for the lesson, “my heart was pounding a mile a minute.”

Her conclusion: “Within a few minutes I’d figured it out. It was really easy to use. I thought, ‘This is great. I can be a title searcher now.’ I was truly amazed.”

The court now has personal computers set up in the land records room to give searchers experience before the system goes on-line in mid-September. Two titling agencies also are serving as pilot users, to spot the bugs in the system.

Marcia Noca, title coordinator for Estate Title and Escrow Inc. in Fairfax County, has participated in the pilot project. The electronic records have not made trips to the courthouse unnecessary, but they do allow title searchers to get more work done in the office, she said.

Right now, searchers can’t go back as far back as they need to online, she said. “We can’t do the front part of the search.” And they can’t get certified copies of documents without going to the courthouse.

But as Fairfax commits more of its files to electronic access, and as more courthouses go on-line, “someday you can just work at home,” Noca said.

How do the systems affect workflow at the courthouse?

“Actually, it creates a little bit more work for us,” Deliee said.

Land records clerks must teach searchers how to use the system.

The process of scanning documents for electronic storage is faster than the old-fashioned routine of creating paper or microfilm deed books — especially in Fairfax, where three or four deed books are generated each day. But clerks are taking advantage of the saved time to add to the information available — adding tax map identification numbers to the indexes, for example.

How expensive are the systems to use?

Fairfax is charging for access at this point. Wise County is looking at the possibility of fees eventually. Richmond County plans to charge, but no fees have been set yet.

In Fairfax, the cost of tapping into the court’s mainframe data is 5 cents per transaction plus a $25 clerk’s fee per month. Mainframe data includes civil cases, delinquent real estate taxes, assessments, General District Court judgments and court services information.

In Fairfax, the cost is $250 per month for unlimited access to the full menu, which includes the mainframe data. Also available under this plan are land records indexes and imaged documents dating back to 1980. The menu eventually will include marriage licenses, charters, financing statements, and notary rosters. Additional connections cost $125 per month.

What concerns are there about the systems?

Obviously, access is dependent on the computers working, Gilbert said. In Wise, he has had to wait for the system to come back up because “the computers went down. That’s happened a couple of times. You’re just out of luck.”

Gilbert also worries that the system provides an impediment to people who are intimidated by computers. “You have to be sort of computer literate. There are no paper deeds anymore, no books. It’s more difficult for common ordinary people. It’s sort of daunting,” he said.

Deliee has been pondering how on-line access will make it easier for people to snoop on their neighbors. Like the other systems, Fairfax requires some foreknowledge to view a document — the deedbook volume and page number from the index, for example.

Fairfax decided, at least at first, to not make it as simple as looking up a name and street address, to cut down on the snoop factor — members of the public looking up “that police officer who wrote the ticket,” Deliee said.

But, she believes, “In the next couple years it’s not going to matter. It’s going to be wide open.”

Traver and others worry about hackers. When courthouse records are located “in the innards of a computer somewhere,” what happens if a remote mischief-maker destroys the file? he asked. Title searches still stop cold at the 1800s in Prince William County, where courthouse records were destroyed during the Civil War.

Traver and Hauser said the new technology is raising other questions that Virginia will have to address. These include: