Contingency Planning

The Middlesex North Registry of Deeds continued pandemic-operations today, recording documents submitted by e-file; by mail; and by customer drop-off (as described in prior posts on this site). The "Red Team" of registry employees staffed the place today while the "Blue Team" which was on duty all last week, stayed home. Since I'm on the Blue Team, I operated from home today. Our new phone system allows calls to my office phone to automatically ring on my cell phone and my computer is able to access everything I could access at work.

While things are going smoothly, that's almost certain to change given the rapidly evolving situation we find ourselves in. For instance, here is (some of) a notice now appearing on the Suffolk Registry of Deeds website:

Courthouse Closing

As of Saturday, March 28, 2020, as the result of a COVID-19 exposure at the Edward Brooke Courthouse, the entire facility is now closed to both the public and all courthouse employees.

The Suffolk Registry of Deeds staff cannot access the facility and, therefore, cannot record either recorded land or registered land mail sent in by Fed Ex, UPS or the U.S. Mail.

From Monday, March 30 to Friday, April 3, the only recording that will occur is the electronic recording of recorded land documents – which will be recorded by staff remotely from home.

From Monday, March 30 to Friday, April 3, please do not send any mail to the Registry since there is no one present to retrieve, accept or sign for it.

If this is to happen at the Lowell Justice Center, the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds would react similarly: we would have to halt all recordings of tangible documents (mail and drop-offs) and be able to (remotely) record electronic filings only. Such a situation would persist for at least five working days, perhaps longer.

We all hope nothing like this happens, but I wanted you to know that it was a possibility so that you can plan accordingly.