More on Electronic Recording

Now that we have a handful of electronic recordings behind us, here are some observations on the process. The electronic recording reception software seems to work just fine. When a document “payload” arrives to be processed, the screens we see resemble what we see during our verification process. (Verification occurs a day or two after recording when a registry employee re-enters all the data that was previously typed by another registry employee at the recording counter so that any discrepancies – and possible errors – will be identified). When we open up the incoming electronic recording, we confirm that all the pages have been properly scanned and try to ensure that the document is for recorded (not registered) land, that it’s properly signed and that it’s at the correct registry. If all is in order, we press the “record” button and the document including its electronic image is on record. For payment of fees, the company that serves as the recording agent simply makes a bank transfer into our account at the end of each day for the amount of recording fees incurred for that day. After just a few trial recordings, we’ve identified some issues that must be addressed. We will probably develop a “rules and regulations” that very clearly states who is responsible for what – for example, if the customer submits a registered land document to recorded land and we don’t catch it, it’s entirely the customer’s responsibility to correct the problem. But overall, we are extremely optimistic about the usefulness of electronic recording.