Son of Internet

I’ll bet you heard of Terminator 2 and Godzilla 2...but have you heard of Internet2? Internet2 was established in 1996. It is a high–speed network that connects 200 universities and 60 corporations for the purpose of research and testing. It is not connected to the main Internet and therefore not open to the public. When I say high-speed…I am not kidding. Recently, Internet2 has hit the news in a big way. This lightning fast communication network can download a movie 1,000 times faster than today’s Internet. One computer expert stated that every song ever recorded by Aerosmith could be downloaded in 5 seconds. It is kind of like today’s Internet on steroids. At issue is the music industry’s decision to pursue users of Internet2 who are downloading pirated music. At this time only students of participating universities can connect to Internet2. Students access Internet2 using i2hub and share files at an incredible rate of speed. thei2hub.organization states that it is a “platform for students from colleges, universities and institutions globally, providing instant access to an academic community built on collaboration”. Sounds great…the only thing is RIAA (The Recording Industry Association of America) thinks i2hub is being used illegally to share music and movies. The Question…How long will it be before the consumer industry (the rest of us) demand the same access? All of us want to download files (legally of course) 1,000 times faster with this souped up "Son of Internet”? Just when I thought I had “dial up” figured out they throw this at me.

Top Five Privacy Issues

While exploring privacy issues, I came upon an interesting article from the Computerworld website. Dated December 28, 2004, this article discussed the “Top Five Privacy Issues for 2005.” In general, people are very concerned about privacy, but the majority would be willing to take “significant information sharing risks for small benefit.” For example, consumers will provide enormous amounts of personal information to an airline or the federal government if it allows them to get through airport security faster. The five specific issues identified were (1) the need for a universal ID credential, probably one that uses biometrics such as fingerprinting or voice recognition for authentication. (2) Companies should actively pursue people and entities that spoof the company’s web identity. Cybercriminals target major companies with counterfeit Web sites and emails. Companies must find ways to protect their brand identity from such attacks. (3) Customers prefer to view Internet ads that are relevant to them but are concerned about the security of the information that’s used to target them. (4) When it comes to traveling, people are more concerned about their safety than their privacy. (5) Companies that are trusted perform better. Earning a customer’s trust may be a prerequisite to achieving a more profitable relationship. At first glance, these items may seem to be more relevant to corporate America than to a registry of deeds or a small law office. Still, I suspect that the general principals apply to everyone.

More on Identity Theft

Yesterday’s news that LexisNexis had exposed the personal information of 310,000 people to criminals (not the 32,000 LexisNexis initially reported in March) has caused the simmering issue of identity theft to reach a low boil. I’ve been carrying on an off-line debate with several prominent attorneys on this issue. One took issue with my recent criticism of the IRS and the Massachusetts DOR for continuing to put social security numbers on tax liens that are recorded at the registry of deeds. The argument in favor of including social security numbers on tax liens is that access to this absolutely unique identifier gives the conveyancing attorney the certainty required in determining that a lien does (or more importantly, does not) relate to the party involved in the pending real estate transaction. And, as between this need for certainty and the likelihood of public disclosure of the social security number of a tax delinquent, well, just pay your taxes on time and you won’t have to worry about it. I see two flaws in this approach. First, as another of my corresponding counselors points out, you can usually do the same thing using the last four digits of the social security number rather than the complete number. It is highly unlikely that the last four digits of your innocent client’s and the tax delinquent’s social security numbers would match. Why, that’s as inconceivable as the Red Sox winning the World Series. But I digress. In the unlikely event that the four numbers do match, then the attorney could inquire further. The second problem is that today’s tax delinquent is tomorrow’s upstanding citizen. People, especially those who dabble in real estate for a living, tend to experience wide financial swings. While their economic status changes over time, their social security numbers always stay the same. More on this tomorrow.

Loose Document Pages

A small but growing group of customers has gotten into the habit of plopping a stack of loose document pages in front of our cashier terminals and standing there while we try to discern whether the pages make up one document or several. Often, the person on the other side of the counter knows less about the documents than we do since we’ve at least looked at them by that point, so asking the customer to sort things out hasn’t been successful. With increasing frequency, we’ve been missing documents at the bottom of the stack. For example, just yesterday we discovered that a 12 page mortgage recorded on Friday was in fact a 10 page mortgage followed by a 2 page homestead. Assignments of leases and rents (or just plain assignments) have been tacked on to the back of mortgages. We try to be careful, but when the standard mortgage comes with several riders, seeing signature blocks scattered throughout a single document is not unusual. To remedy this problem, we’ve instituted a new rule. The pages of multiple page documents must be fastened together with either a staple or a paper clip when presented for recording, otherwise the documents we will reject the documents. And just a reminder, once a document is recorded, no changes may be made to it. So please, scrutinize your documents with extra care before sending them on their way to the registry of deeds.

Peanuts & Cracker Jacks?

Ah, Opening Day…the crack of the bat, the pop of leather gloves…the Red Sox. Nothing says spring more than baseball. I am far from a “FANatic”, but I do enjoy the sport. Admittedly, I am a fair-weather fan. My life became so much simpler once I admitted it to myself and others…the Sox lose…”ah, they stink”…the Sox win…”how about MY Sox”. With this in mind I offer the following Opening Day questions:
Would you, or anyone you know, spend the night sleeping on Lansdown Street for tickets to a baseball game?
If Schilling gave up eleven hits and seven runs to a minor league team last week…What do you think the Yankees are going to do to him on Wednesday?
Do you believe the rumor that the camera crazed Johnny Damon is really Matt’s paternal twin?
Nomar Who?
Do you think the Mets would trade Pedro to us for Wells?
Does anyone buy peanuts and Cracker Jacks at the ballpark anymore?
Can anyone afford to buy peanuts and Cracker Jacks at the ballpark anymore?
Why don’t professional ball players forget the illegal stuff and just start eating their Wheaties again?
Do you think it is possible that Kevin Millar’s great great grandfather was a bad speller?
Do you think the Sox can repeat?

Touch Screen Technology

There’s a real surge in recordings of Declarations of Homestead these days. Each day, homeowners come to the registry, fill out the form, have it notarized and record it, all of which takes less than ten minutes. Because our Homestead form requires customers to exhibit their penmanship when filling in the blanks, we can say that the state of handwriting in America is slipping. In an attempt to improve the legibility of these customer-created Homesteads, we are developing a “Homestead Maker” that uses touch screen technology. Here’s how it works: We’ve taken an old PC and written a program that prompts the user for the information necessary to complete the form such as name, address, town and book and page reference. This program causes a computer keyboard to appear on the computer’s screen. All the customer has to do is touch the letters needed to fill in the blanks and press the “print” button. A fully typed Homestead form will emerge and the customer signs it and we notarize it and record it. The prototype we’ve been experimenting with has yielded very good results, so good that we see the next step has self-contained Homestead kiosks that can be placed in town halls or libraries throughout the district.

Don't Get Hooked

Phishing!
Don't you mean “fishing”?
No…if you haven’t heard of “Phishing” yet, it won’t be long before you do. “Phishing is a technique used to gain personal information for the purpose of identity theft, using fraudulent e-mail messages that appear to come from legitimate businesses”. These messages look authentic and are designed to make recipients reveal personal information such as bank passwords. Here is how it works. An email is sent from what “appears” to be a legitimate company such as eBay, AOL, Yahoo, Citibank etc. These scammers package their email in such away that it looks exactly like the company’s home page (these people are good). The email might inform you that your account could be suspended if you do not re-update your account information. In some cases people have been asked to give credit card information, social security numbers, ATM pins, birth date and mother’s maiden name. Statistics say that because these emails look so authentic, up to 20% of the recipients respond to them and suffer some sort of lose. Popular targets are users of online banking and auction sites such as eBay. In March of 2005, US Senator Patrick Leahy filed a bill called the Anti-Phishing Act. It proposes that “Phishers” (I guess that’s what you would call them) be subject to fines of up to $250,000 and jail time of up to five years. Anti Phishing websites are popping up everywhere: www.anti-phishing.org gives daily news from the net about phishing; www.millersmiles.co.uk lists a collection of phishing alerts and reports; and if you would like to see an actual sample of phishing go to www.fightidentitytheft.com/paypal_scam.html . Email is great… but just don’t get hooked by it.

Electronic Recording and the Rundown

As we ease our way into electronic recording, I expect that the earliest documents submitted will not be particularly time sensitive. These will be documents that would otherwise by sent to us by mail and we assume if you are relying on the U.S. Postal Service (as good as it is) to get us the documents, you’re not especially concerned with the half dozen documents that are recorded immediately before yours. Time sensitive documents such as deeds and mortgages are a different story. When a customer brings one of those to the recording counter, he has (usually) just used one of our public access terminals to do a rundown that includes every document recorded up to that moment. To bridge the gap between the end of that rundown and the actual recording – only a few minutes given the low volume of recordings these days – we have an automatic look back feature on our recording terminals. When we enter a name in the grantor index for an about to be recorded document, if that same name has been entered into the computer during the preceding 45 minutes, a pop-up warning box appears stating that the same name appeared in an earlier document, giving the book and page number of that document. The recording clerk then tells the customer about the warning and the customer either tells us to proceed (presumably he already knows about that document) or pulls back from the recording counter to check it out. Since our website is instantly updated with new recordings, the remote customer can do a final search over the Internet just before pressing the “Send to Recorder” button on the electronic recording screen. That mimics the at-the-registry rundown before getting in line at the recording counter. And the cashiering terminals still have the 45-minute look back feature, regardless of whether the name has been typed by a registry clerk or submitted electronically. But the parallels end there. What if we have a name match with an electronically submitted document? The customer is no longer three feet away on the other side of the recording counter. The customer is now miles away on the other side of cyber space. Do we automatically reject the entire submission? Do we record it anyway? Neither of those seem like good solutions to this problem. We have some ideas, but if any of you have suggestions, we would really appreciate hearing them.

The last 1131

Great news! We received the go ahead from the Secretary of State’s Office to scan our final 1131 records books. The project involves digitizing and naming (by book & page) more than 650,000 microfilm images. When completed all Recorded Land documents from Book 1(July 1855) to present will be available to the public electronically. Of course, this includes Internet accessibility as well. Digital Scanning Inc of Situate will do the work. Digital Scanning does 100% visual quality control. While this project is just beginning we are nearing completion on our Registered Land scanning project. Over the past ten months, we have scanned approximately 114,000 Registered Land instruments in-house. There are only about 25,000 left to be done. We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. We hope to finish this project by July 1. The registry’s 150-year celebration will take place this July. Our objective is to have all our recorded and registered land documents available on the Internet for the anniversary.

Nanotechnology

What’s the big deal about something very, very small? That was the subject of a presentation on nanotechnology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell last evening. With $1 trillion expected to be spent in this field over the next ten years, universities all over the world are racing to achieve breakthroughs. While everyone else seems focused on experimentation in the laboratory, UML has broken from the pack by focusing on nanomanufacturing which is the act of making nano products of high quality, quickly and on a large scale. A nano product is something very, very small with millions of nanos fitting on the head of a pin, for example. Nano products fall into just about every field imaginable. In the future, cars will be lighter and stronger because they’ll be made of plastic that has been altered through nanotechnology. Hypodermic needles will become obsolete as future medicines made with nanotechnology will be delivered by absorption through the skin. Try as I might, I have not yet imagined an application for nanotechnology here at the registry of deeds. Nevertheless, it’s worth writing about because it is sure to transform much about the way we live our lives in the very near future.

Electronic Recording Moves Follow

We reached a milestone in electronic recording yesterday by recording a test document in our real database. Mechanically, the system worked fine. The indexing data and the document image that we entered and scanned at a remote location appeared almost instantly on the designated recording terminal. At the recording counter, all we have to do is confirm that the document image created by the customer is legible and complete and then compare the data entered with that contained within the image. If all is in order, we click on the “record” button and the document is immediately on record. Instead of a bar code label showing the recording information (book, page and instrument number, date and time of recording), the electronic recording system generates a cover sheet for each document. The cover sheet contains all recording information and becomes part of the document (so if you electronically record a three page document, it becomes a four page document once recorded). To see how the two test documents appear on the Internet, go to “Search Land Records” and search for the name “Borrower.”

Housing Sales

According to an Associated Press story published in the Boston Globe this week, rising mortgage rates will have only a marginal effect on the nations hot real estate market. Even though mortgages rates are expected to continue rise during the year, most economists believe the increase will be gradual leaving the housing market in good shape. In February sales of previously owned homes fell slightly but new home sales leaped by close to 9.5%. Many analysts feel rates could hit 7% by the end of the year. Doug Duncan, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association said, “For me, it’s the speed at which rates rise that is important. If rates were to go up rapidly and pass 7.5% that would bother me”. In the final analysis, any cooling seen this year shifts the real estate market from “hot” to “very strong”.

Planning for the Future

Yesterday we launched “Sounds of the Registry” – recorded interviews stored as audio files that can be heard by anyone visiting our website. While I expect the inevitable anonymous email comment complaining about us wasting money and acting unprofessionally, the truth is that we’re propelling the registry into the future. Maybe it would be slicker and more professional looking if we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on “consultants” – that’s standard procedure in government – but we don’t have hundreds (never mind hundreds of thousands) of dollars in extra money to spend. And in the age of computers, the best way to do something is to try to figure it out yourself. That’s how you learn about technology and grow comfortable with it. When you eventually do hire an expert, you know what to ask for and what to monitor, so you end up getting a better product. As for our vision of the future, it’s nothing unique. Glance through the Business section of yesterday’s Globe and notice the headlines: “Web radio quickly finding niche markets” “As Verizon hikes 411 cost, rival offers a free tryout” “Online kitchens a recipe for the future” “Newspaper creates Web town square.” The Internet has revolutionized the way to deliver information to people, but all kinds of businesses – newspapers, telephone companies, radio stations, grocery stores, and yes, registries of deeds - have to figure out what works and what doesn’t. And that’s what we’re doing. Your comments, even the negative ones, help us the most.

Sounds of the Registry

This morning Register Richard Howe and I recorded three audio interviews concerning registry related topics. These files have been uploaded to our website and are available to the public. In the first interview the Register talks about the basics of the Homestead . The second interview deals with the hot topic “Homesteads and Refinancing”. And finally the third discusses making changes on a deed. In the coming weeks more audio files will be added to our website, each dealing with an interesting relevant topic. As always your feedback is welcome. And please feel free to let us know if there is a particular topic you would like to hear the Register discuss. The easiest way to respond is through our “Contact Us” link located on the lower left hand corner of our webpage.

Sounds of the Registry

This morning Register Richard Howe and I recorded three audio interviews concerning registry related topics. These files have been uploaded to our website and are available to the public. In the first interview the Register talks about the basics of the Homestead . The second interview deals with the hot topic “Homesteads and Refinancing”. And finally the third discusses making changes on a deed. In the coming weeks more audio files will be added to our website, each dealing with an interesting relevant topic. As always your feedback is welcome. And please feel free to let us know if there is a particular topic you would like to hear the Register discuss. The easiest way to respond is through our “Contact Us” link located on the lower left hand corner of our webpage.

Homesteads on the Radio

Media interest in the Declaration of Homestead continues. This morning I was a guest on WUML, the University of Massachusetts Lowell radio station, to explain Homestead basics. Fortunately, the discussion didn’t get bogged down in the “should you record a new homestead after refinancing” debate. I don’t mind talking about that, but that’s all most of us can do is talk. Until the Appeals Court or Supreme Judicial Court decide this issue in a case or until the state legislature clarifies the existing statute, we’re left to speculate. Because there is no consensus, I suspect either option will protect the family home. After explaining all the benefits of the Homestead, one of the radio hosts asked “If it’s so good, why isn’t it automatic?” I can think of a couple of reasons: The credit card and banking industry have much more powerful lobbyists than homeowners do. You only have to look at the new bankruptcy law for evidence of that. Another reason the homestead might not be made automatic is that every homestead that is recorded gives the state $35 in revenue. In Lowell, which is in the middle of the state’s 21 registries size-wise, we record about 5000 homesteads per year. That translates into $175,000 per year for the state just from Lowell. Speaking of radio, we’ve been experimenting with a new method of providing you with information – recorded sound. We’ll be recording some short (5 minute) discussions on registry topics that will appear as links on our website. All you have to do is double click, and you can listen to us talk about electronic recording, homesteads, and other registry topics.

Computer Glitch & WIFI in the Registry

Yesterday, we took some steps to increase the security of our computers. Unfortunately, we made them so secure that we were unable to log on any of our public access terminals this morning. It took about two hours to get the problem resolved, but with so little recording activity, hardly anyone seemed to be effected by it. Our internal computers continued to work and the Internet was not disrupted at all. I apologize to anyone who was inconvenienced by this. Speaking of computer security, one morning last week while walking through the record hall, my passing glance at the screen of a title examiner's notebook computer caught a glimpse of something that looked like our website being displayed. Curious, I asked the title examiner if he was accessing our website with a wireless Internet connection (I could already see that he wasn’t plugged into our network – that really would have gotten my attention). Without identifying the WIFI connection he was using (we don’t have one), he explained how useful it was to have Internet access on his own computer while here at the registry, especially for saving document images that could be printed later back at his office. That’s certainly cheaper than paying us $1 per copy for stuff he would otherwise print from our public access system. Several months ago, we purchase a very inexpensive wireless hub to do some experimentation, but that made the security folks very nervous (that’s there job), so we shelved the project until appropriate safeguards can be established. Still, within the next year, I see us activating a registry-based, free WIFI connection that will allow registry users with their own notebook computers access to our website from within the registry.

Spam Slayer

Have you ever been so frustrated and angry about junk email that you wanted to scream? Well relief has arrived…(or so they say). IBM is “spamming spammers”. That’s right on Tuesday, Big Blue announced the release of software that identifies computers that originate unwanted email then bounces it back to the sender…(”Here’s right back at you” )“Spam the spammer”. The software is called FairUCE (Fair use of Unsolicited Commercial Email). This is how IBM’s explains it:
“Technically, FairUCE tries to find a relationship between the envelope senders domain and the IP address of the client delivering the mail, using a series of DNS look ups” (I don’t know what that means either, but I think it's good). “For the vast majority of legitimate mail from AOL to mailing lists to vanity domains, this is a snap. If such a relationship cannot be found, FairUCE attempts to find one by sending a user-customizable challenge/response”.
In other words FairUCE ID’s the email sender then checks its address against other known spammers. If FairUCE can’t verify the sender’s address it sends a “challenge” email. The sender must reply to the challenge to prove that it is a “live” person and not an automated spammer. If it identifies a certain machine as a source of spam… Bam...FairUCE bounces the messages back. The the intent is to clog the spammer and hence slow it down. It’s a great idea, but it's not perfect. IBM estimates that about 20%-30% of spam will slip by its new system. What would you pay for this "spammer slayer"? $100?…how about $200?… maybe $300? Well how about FREE…yes free…IBM is making the software available free on its Web site. You know what they say...an eye for an eye...and a spam for a spam. Sounds FairUCE to me.

E-Recording Is Back

After a wait of several months (due to a variety of reasons), we're about to re-commence our journey into the brave new world of electronic recording. Later this week, we're supposed to move the software from the test system onto our live recording system and do more testing. We will continue to use the blog to keep everyone abreast of what's happening. My sense is that E-Recording is spreading around the country, but it's also evolving quickly as most new technologies (or uses of technology) do. For that reason, I continue to think that we want to proceed slowly and deliberately with this. Everyone embraces the concept of electronic recording, but the more you know about it, the more you realize you don't know about it. So we're entering an educational phase right now. More on this later in the week.

150th

This summer the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds will celebrate its 150th anniversary. In anticipation the wheels have already begun to turn looking for ways to highlight the registry’s rich history. It is obvious that tremendous changes have taken place over the years. I would guess that the changes in the registry's first 130 years were minor in comparison to the last 20 years. Governor Henry Joseph Gardner approved the act establishing the Middlesex North Register on March 24, 1855. “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representative in General Court assembled and by the authority of same as follows: Sect1. The city of Lowell the towns of Dunstable, Tyngsboro, Dracut, Tewksbury, Billerica, Chelmsford, Carlisle, Wilmington and Westford in the county of Middlesex are hereby constituted a district for the registry of deeds, which district shall be known as the Northern District of Middlesex and for all things relating to the register or registry of deeds or other instruments, shall be deemed to be a county and all provisions of law concerning such office shall apply to that office except as is hereinafter provided; and the office of said registry shall be kept in the court-house in the city of Lowell. If you were wondering, the first Register of Deeds in the Middlesex North District was Asahel B. Wright. He served from 1855-1868. In the coming months you will hear more about our plans to commemorate this milestone. And as always…your suggestions are welcome.

Homesteads & Refinancing

The past two Sundays, the Lowell Sun has run a column by Attorney James Haroutunian of Billerica on the Declaration of Homestead. Both the newspaper and Attorney Haroutunian would be impressed with the influence they wield over their readers – this we’ve been flooded with homeowners wanting to record homesteads. Those that we’ve asked have cited the newspaper column as the reason for their visit. Besides acquainting people with the general homestead provisions, the most recent article plunges into the “should you record a new homestead after you refinance” controversy. The article is unambiguous: the headline reads “Record new homestead after refinancing loan.” I’m still not convinced that a new mortgage requires a new homestead. Without a Supreme Judicial Court decision or a clarification of the statute, I’m not sure there’s much point in debating this issue. I suspect that as long as there is a homestead, whether it predates the new mortgage or was recorded afterwards, courts will liberally apply the homesteads protection and not get bogged down in legal technicalities.

St Patrick's Day

The story goes… Merrimack Mills agent Kirk Boott donated a plot of company land for a Catholic church to be built to establish “stability” within Lowell’s new Irish community. In 1831 St Patrick’s was completed and marked the permanent settlement of the Irish in Lowell. This section of land encompassing the “Acre” grew rapidly in the 1840’s as Irish immigrants streamed into Lowell to escape the poverty of their homeland. The original Irish settlers lived on the out skirts of the town in an area called “Paddy Camp Lands”. A copy of a map depicting “Paddy Camp Lands” in 1832 was recently discovered here at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds. You can view this map by following the links on the registry’s home page. The deed that transferred the property donated by Boott for the construction of St Patrick’s is also viewable at this registry. Unfortunately, all ethnic groups have suffered discrimination and injustice when settling in a new land…the Irish were no exception. The following are excerpts from actual deeds recorded over one hundred years ago in the Lowell registry. They bring these harsh realities back to us. These deeds can be seen in their entirety at the registry.

May 27, 1889
I, Charles D. Wald in consideration of $37.00 paid by Henry W. Copp do hereby grant to Henry W. Copp the land in Wilmington …subject to the following restrictions,viz: That said premises are not occupied or conveyed to any Negroes or Irish…

May 5, 1881
We Susan B. Butters and Eleanor P. Butters of Lowell in consideration of $3,000 grant to Abel T Atherton of Lowell the land on the Easterly side of Fairmont street… the said premises being deeded under the express agreement and condition that the land shall never be deeded or conveyed to any person born in Ireland.

Happy St Patrick’s Day

More on Privacy

Today’s mail brought a tax lien from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office that prominently displayed the taxpayer’s social security number. In yesterday’s blog entry, I explained that in most cases we will not record documents containing social security numbers. State and federal tax documents, however, are the exception. About a year ago I raised the identity theft issue in relation to social security numbers on state tax liens with an official from DOR. The response, to paraphrase, was “if they paid their taxes they wouldn’t have to worry about it.” More recently, I’ve seen a recognition by some at DOR that this is a problem, but the social security numbers continue to appear. It’s probably time to set up a meeting. The IRS also routinely puts social security numbers on liens that are recorded here. The challenge we face at the registry is not just for future documents. We have thousands of previously recorded tax liens (and other documents) that contain social security numbers. Removing this sensitive information from these records on such a large scale requires some kind of formal legal authority I believe. Even if we obtain that, the task of finding then redacting this information will be a huge project. But, no matter how much we try to ignore it, it’s not going away, so we might as well start to address it now.

Identity Theft Revisited

A blog entry last week discussed identity theft and the need to do something about it. Well, as the old saying goes, “be careful what you wish for because it might come true.” Today I came in contact with a concerned citizen from another part of the state who had some very tangible and disturbing observations about registry of deeds records. This person had stumbled upon several land records that contained the social security numbers of the individuals involved. He pointed out to me the broader vulnerability of our system to wrong doers intent on stealing personal information. (Since further details would increase the odds of this actually happening, I’ll omit them). Here’s our current policy regarding social security numbers. We will not record a document that contains a social security number (except for state and federal tax liens which warrant their own discussion, probably tomorrow). We give the customer the option of crossing out the social security number or of not recording the document. We haven’t had a problem with this yet. Unfortunately, that hasn’t always been the registry’s policy, so there are documents on record that contain social security numbers. When someone brings such a document to our attention, we have altered the document image to obscure the social security number. This, of course, is contrary to a record custodian’s every instinct – altering an existing record is very serious business. But I’ve concluded that the risk of serious harm posed by publishing a social security number on the Internet outweighs the problems that might arise by this limited alteration. That’s enough for today. Check back tomorrow for part two of this discussion.

Press, Press, Pull

Last week California Judge, James Kleinberg ruled that three Apple Website bloggers must reveal sources that provided them with Apple trade secrets. These bloggers published information on their Web sites that had been leaked to them by Apple employees. Apple demanded that the three bloggers, ThinkSecret, AppleInsider, and PowerPage, provide the names of the sources of the stolen information. The case attracted national attention when the sites representatives claimed to be “journalists” and were protected by Federal and California law from disclosing their source. The journalist protection privilege in California is known as the “shield law”. The judge did not agree. He ruled that the subpoenas lodged by Apple against the bloggers were legitimate. According to The Blog Herald many observers are judging Apples actions as an attack on blogging, an assumption that has troubled Apple. The judge noted that what constitutes a journalist is “murky” in the online age, but refused to address whether Web site writers, or bloggers are journalist. Kleinberg cleverly avoided the issue. The judge ruled that protecting Apple’s trade secrets out weighed the publics right to information about Apple, as well as the bloggers right to publish it. Since the defendant’s claims would have been rejected even if they were journalist the judge was silent on whether a blogger is a journalist with the same protection rights. This is probably only the first of many cases we will see that will seek to define the responsibilities and standing of blogging and bloggers. I guess I'll have to wait a while for that Pulitzer Prize.

Identity Theft

Every day, it seems, the newspapers carry another story about a security breach at some company whereby sensitive personal information for tens of thousands of people was either inadvertently disclosed or allowed to be hacked. In the latest incident, the Lexis/Nexis Group disclosed that names, addresses and social security numbers of 30,000 people have fallen into the hands of thieves. Most of us know Lexis as one of the pioneers in the electronic legal research business but the company has obviously branched out. This latest breach occurred when the passwords of legitimate users were somehow obtained by unknown individuals who prospected the supposedly secure database. Of course, this all invites the question, why do the “legitimate” users need our social security numbers in the first place. But back to the unauthorized use of this information: Congress has to pass legislation prohibiting these companies from packaging and selling our personal information without our consent. Otherwise, confidence in and acceptance of electronic commerce will fade and years of progress and innovation will be lost.

Indexing Update

We continue to add new material to our website. To see the latest addition, follow the “Indexing” link on our website which now contains a Quick Reference Guide for Indexing documents. Seven or more years ago, when it became obvious that registry indexes were destined to reside on computers and not in paper books, we began to emphasize indexing standards. Common indexing methods are critical to standardizing registry computer systems. Even if all registries used identical computer systems, user searches would still yield different results unless registry employees enter data into their respective computer systems in the same way. As a step towards this necessary indexing standardization, the Massachusetts Association of Registers and Assistant Registers of Deeds adopted the Massachusetts Deed Indexing Standards in January 2000. These standards are excellent, but they only go so far. Issues that are not covered by the standards are constantly arising, so we have created local rules to supplement these standards. Hopefully, these local rules will lead to a statewide discussion on updating the January 2000 Standards. We will keep you posted on that effort. In the meantime, please check out our Indexing Quick Reference Guide and send us you comments and suggestions.

CIA, SOS, MP, NATO, IBM, ACLU

How about a short quiz to brighten up a wintery Wednesday. This time it’s real estate related “acronyms”. An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of a name, such as FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) or ASAP (As Soon As Possible).
Now that you’ve got it… let’s give it a try? What do the following Acronyms stand for?
1.FSBO
2.ARM
3.FHA
4.FDIC
5.HUD
6.UCC
7.LTV
8.PMI
9.POA
10.BTSA
For the answers check the comments section of this blog entry.

New Bankruptcy Law

Indications are that the US Senate is about to pass a bill that will toughen existing bankruptcy law. The new version will make it more difficult for ordinary citizens to dig themselves out from debt. The credit card industry (the prime proponent of this legislation) maintains that these changes are necessary because people have been abusing the bankruptcy laws by living recklessly on borrowed money and then walking away from their obligations. Others say that most bankruptcies are the direct result of some personal crisis – an unforeseen medical condition, divorce, an extended period of unemployment, for example – and that providing the opportunity for a fresh start financially is the right and fair thing to do. Ironically, liberal bankruptcy laws were much preferred by our Founding Fathers, many of whom were farmers who relied heavily on credit and who could be wiped out financially by one bad crop. They saw the wisdom of affording a person the opportunity for a fresh start. What’s this all got to do with the registry of deeds? For the ordinary Massachusetts homeowner, the Declaration of Homestead now becomes more important than ever. A watered down bankruptcy law that just stretches out your payments rather than allowing you to start over doesn’t provide much protection. Please check out the Homestead link on our web page (www.lowelldeeds.com) which has been updated with some new information.

Registered Land By Town 2004

Listed below are some interesting statistics regarding Registered Land recordings in 2004. The first column is the name of the Middlesex North Community, the second the number of Registered Land documents recorded by that community and the third is the percentage of a community’s total documents which are registered. Carlisle, Billerica and Wilmington topped the percentage list with double-digit numbers. Billerica, Lowell and Wilmington recorded the highest number of Registered land documents.

Town Total Reg Land % of Total
Billerica 2,202 (16.1)
Carlisle 370 19.4
Chelmsford 504 4.0
Dracut 389 3.6
Dunstable 9 .05
Lowell 1,319 5.1
Tewksbury 922 8.6
Tyngsborough 121 3.0
Westford 295 3.8
Wilmington 1,163 15.7

The total number of Registered Land Recorded for the year was 7,959.

Website "Links" Redesigned

Sorry to be late with yesterday’s blog entry, but I got carried away with a redesign of the “Links” section of the website (www.lowelldeeds.com). This portion of the website has gone through several evolutions. The initial design from several years ago had only a handful of links that were labeled in a very general way. The problem with this design was that if you were unsure of something’s location, you had to click through several pages deep, but if you guessed wrong, you would have to back out and try again. To counteract that problem, we made the links section very extensive, exhaustively listing topics in alphabetical order. The resulting list, however, proved too long, so we’ve been working on a new and improved version. What’s on the site right now is just an interim measure. Hopefully, the new version will be online by the end of the day (Friday).

A Knight to Remember

The Mother Country, England that is…decided it was time to honor a great American. Microsoft Chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates received an honorary Knighthood this morning in Buckingham Palace. Queen Elizabeth awarded Gates the title “Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire”. Earlier today I was telling a friend of mine about Gates’ great honor.
He said: So why should I care?…is my computer still going to freeze when I run two programs at once?
Tony: Well I guess so… He’s only a Knight you know… not a Prince.
Friend: They’re not going to dress him up in a suit of armor and parade him around on a white horse are they?
Tony: No…England is in the modern times now…They’ve got “fish and chips”, beer, lipitor…you name it.
Friend: A President?
Tony: No.
Friend: What do we call Mr. Gates now that he's a Knight?
Tony: It could be one of a several titles…"William Gates CEO, KBE Zillionaire" or "Sir William Gates Zillionaire" or maybe just plain old "Knight Bill Zillionaire".
Friend: Is “zillionaire” officially part of the English title?
Tony: No…that’s the American part. On second thought…Bill is not really a "Sir". They only give that title to English citizens like Paul McCartney…
Friend: He’s not going to perform at the Super Bowl next year is he?
Tony: Of course not!… I heard that during the ceremony Gates (KBE) kneeled before the Queen and said the famous motto of the order of chivalry…“For God and Empire”.
Friend: I thought “Microsoft” was the Empire
Tony: Yeah, right…I guess that's true…the sun never sets on Microsoft does it.
Friend: If I were Bill Gates, CEO of the largest most influential computer company in the world, I would have refused the Knighthood.
Tony: Why?
Friend: Well… I hear the Queen still has trouble playing Pong on Prince Charles’s Atari.
Tony: Did you eat yet? How about some crumpets and tea?
Friend: You pay…I’m no Zillionarie nor Knight for that matter.
I've got to get new friends!

Fast Profits With Real Estate

It seems that short term real estate investments have replaced the stock market as the vehicle for the average American to quickly achieve great wealth. A story in today’s New York Times (“Speculators Seeing Gold in a Boom in the Prices for Homes”) describes how many folks have plunged into the preconstruction real estate market, buying homes and condominiums that are not even built with the intent of selling them quickly for a fast profit. The website www.getpreconstructionprofits.com will send you a how to video for just $197 in case anyone is interested. I have attributed the rapid increase in home prices to low interest rates, but it seems like that’s only part of the reason prices have risen and stayed so high. With conservative investments earning only 3% or 4% and many still using their capital loss carryovers from the stock market plunge of just a few years ago, real estate certainly looks like a solid investment. And over time it is. The problem is that the appreciation in property values is neither steady nor constant. At least twice in the past twenty years, real estate prices in the Greater Lowell area have plunged, causing great losses for many property owners. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again anytime soon.

Jef Raskin

Computer pioneer Jef Raskin died Saturday. Raskin is regarded as the father of Apple Computer’s Macintosh. He named the revolutionary computer after his favorite eating apple (he changed the spelling for copyright reasons). In the 1970’s Raskin worked at the Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) where a mouse driven Graphic User Interface (GUI) was first developed. Microsoft’s “Windows Operating System” is the most common example of a Graphic User Interface. Before the development of GUI, computer interfaces were text based and required users to enter long complex lines of text commands. I saw a movie a number of years ago titled “Pirates of the Silicon Valley”. It was about the computer pioneers that developed DOS and the GUI operating systems. The movie showed a computer developer demonstrating PARC’s first GUI system to a Xerox executive. In hindsight his comment was rather amusing…he said there was no way the public would use an operating system which was controlled by something called a “mouse” that had to be held in the palm of your hand. Talk about a blunder! It is often suggested that Apple used the ideas developed at PARC to launch its revolutionary Mac and that Microsoft Windows is based on Raskin’s “click and drop” idea. I recently read an article by Bob Moriarty in “MacCPU” which states that Raskin had conceived the idea of a Graphic User Interface long before working at Xerox. Moriarty claims that in 1967 Raskin wrote his Phd thesis on the concept of using graphics to command computers. Moriarty says that many of the ideas that came out of PARC were Raskins to begin with. In 1976 Raskin wrote the basic manual for the Apple II and joined the company in 1978. Raskin was employee #31 at Apple. Despite strong opposition from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, the Macintosh project as approved for development. Raskin convinced his peers at Apple that a computer that was affordable and easy to use would catch on with the public. His suggested that the Mac sell for between $500-$1,000 and be controlled by a GUI. This figure ballooned to close to $5,000 when Jobs took control of the project from Raskin. Raskin left Apple before the Mac was fully developed because of Jobs’ interference. His contribution to the computer world is huge. There is no question the computers we know today would have been far different without him.

More Data Reports from the Registry

With a searchable index that reaches back to 1976 for recorded land (to 1987 for registered land) and document images back to 1950, there’s an immense amount of data stored on the registry computer system. That data is certainly accessible for traditional registry functions such as title searches, run downs, and document viewing, still, there is great potential to use that data for other purposes. To help discover how to better use the information we maintain, I’m attending a computer class to better learn a program called Crystal Reports. This software is not a database program (we already have enough of them) but is a report-generating program that lets you sort, select and summarize records from an existing database like the one that contains the registry information. We have been producing some of these types of reports – our monthly sales and foreclosure reports, for example – but these are just the tip of the information iceberg. So in the future, look for new and different reports to appear on our website. And if you have any suggestions for what type of reports you would like to see, please let me know. On another note, if you need a fix of professional hockey now that the NHL season is official cancelled, check out the Lowell Lock Monsters this Sunday, when they take on the Norfolk Admirals at the Tsongas Arena.

Easy Way to Create Your Own Website

The new “Our Customers” page added its first link yesterday with Shuka Associates, an appraisal firm from Beverly. (It’s gratifying to learn that we have customers on the North Shore as well as the Merrimack Valley). We hope that more real estate professionals will ask us to add their websites to the “Our Customers” page. But what about you title examiners and attorneys who don’t have a website of your own? Here’s a suggestion for a quick and no cost solution. Just set up a blog of your own. You don’t have to post to it everyday; you can just make an initial entry describing your business and then use it as your website. Check out www.blogger.com (which is the service we use for this blog). When you first go to their website, the service prompts you to log in and then guides you through the blog creation process. It’s easy. If you’re capable of finding the latest weather forecast on the Internet, you’re capable of setting up a blog on Blogger. Once you’ve set up your blog (be sure to put a link to your email address and your contact telephone number on it), just use the address of your blog (usually something like www.your_name.blogspot.com) as your website address. Send me an email if you have any questions about how to do this.

Circuit Breaker

This month’s issues of City and Town, a publication of the Department of Revenue has an excellent over-view of the state’s Circuit Breaker program. In 2001 Massachusetts enacted this program to provide tax relief to qualifying senior citizens. From 2001 to 2003 the number of seniors citizens filing claims under the Circuit Breaker increased significantly. This tax credit program was designed to assist low in-come elderly persons in paying property taxes. Homeowners and renters who qualify receive a “refundable credit on their state income taxes”. The maximum credit allowed in 2004 was $820. In order to qualify for the Circuit Breaker, a senior must be at least 65 years old and occupy the property as his/her primary residence. As explained in City and Town “income cannot exceed $44,000 for a single filer who is not the head of household, $55,000 for a head of household or $66,000 for taxpayers filing jointly. Moreover the assessed valuation of the real estate cannot exceed $441,000”. The amount of refund is calculated on the amount “by which the taxpayer’s property taxes, together with the eligible amount of that taxpayers water sewer charges, exceed 10% of the taxpayers income”. A senior who rents may also qualify for the circuit breaker tax credit. The law presumes that 25% of a person’s rent is for property taxes and water and sewer bills. According to City and Town “renters may claim the credit in the amount by which 25% of their annual rental payment is more than 10% of their total income”. Obviously, City and Town was the source of much of the information provide…at least the hard stuff.

Hunter S Thompson, 1937-2005

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold” and so begins “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” a landmark book written by Hunter S. Thompson in 1972. Thompson, who died this past Sunday, was the father of “Gonzo journalism,” a literary technique that blends fact and fiction and makes the author not a passive, anonymous bystander but a main character in the story. It is a technique clearly evident in today’s blogging phenomenon. Thompson was also the model for the “Uncle Duke” character in the popular “Doonesbury” cartoon strip. While the fictional accounts of Thompson’s experiences were undoubtedly extreme exaggerations, even his true lifestyle was certainly not one to be emulated. Still, Thompson succeeded in highlighting failures of leadership and hypocrisy in society in an amusing, entertaining manner while never taking himself too seriously. There are worse legacies. Sorry to delve into the world of literary criticism; that’s usually Tony’s domain. If you need some registry-related info to make it through the day, check out the “What’s New” section of the main page of our website, www.lowelldeeds.com.

Website Advertising

In the quarter that ended with December 2004, Google posted more than $1 billion in revenue from advertising. This was a 101% increase over the same quarter in the prior year. It’s apparent that Google has figured out how to make money from the Internet. Rather than use annoying popup ads, Google uses a more subtle, intelligent approach. The ads displayed on Google are based on the search term you enter. The ads appear as innocuous listings to the right of the websites returned in response to your query. If you “click through” to one of the advertising websites, that company pays Google some amount of money ranging from pennies to several dollars. The rate is determined by the popularity of the search term. If you want your site to appear when someone types “Boston Red Sox” it will cost a lot more than if you want it to appear when someone searches for “Middlesex North Registry of Deeds.” I suspect that we will eventually be looking for sources of revenue from the usage of our website. Some favor charging for access which I think would be a huge mistake. I think the better method of revenue production will be a Google-like advertising program. In anticipation of that, we’re thinking about adding a no-charge links page to our website on which we would have hyperlinks to websites of registry users such as law firms, real estate agencies, appraisers, surveyors and banks. We’ll probably call it “Our Customers.” So if you would like your website added to this page on an experimental basis, just send an email with the address of your website to mailto:lowelldeeds@comcast.net.

New Website Content

We're still hard at work preparing more content for www.lowelldeeds.com. There's an extensive "frequently asked questions" section that should go online tomorrow as well as a number of documents that discuss our methods of indexing documents. Indexing is a constant challenge since the names that appear on documents have so many variations. Still, we must strive for uniformity in how we enter those names into our computer system. Besides the Massachusetts Deed Indexing Standards, we'll have some supplemental material that shows exactly how various names should be indexed in Lowell as well as two presentations that I have given to different groups on indexing. As always, we welcome your suggestions.

MAR Year End

Yesterday, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors released homes sales figures for 2004. As expected both condominium and single-family sales in the state soared. Statewide Median house prices rose to $340,000 up to 11.5% from last year. Condominium increases were even higher, leaping by 15.1% to reach a record $259,000. The year 2004 posted the fastest price increases seem in Massachusetts in several years. Obviously, Condo and Single-family prices fluctuated from region to region. In the Condominium marketplace Boston increased by 10% ($330,000 median), Western Mass an 18% increase ($125,000 median) and Cape Cod saw the highest Condo increase in the state with a 22% jump (250,000 median) over last year’s values. As for single-family houses, median prices gained the most on the South Shore, climbing 13.2% to a record $342,000 median and the Greater Boston area prices increased by 10%.

Property Tax Information

Our Customer Service Office often receives calls from out of state lenders looking for property tax information about particular parcels of real estate. In much of the country, local taxes are the responsibility of county government. Even when we had county government (which we don’t in most of Massachusetts anymore), property taxes were always the responsibility of local government. Consequently, we don’t have any tax information to give to these callers. For towns in our district (Billerica, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Dracut, Dunstable, Lowell, Tewksbury, Tyngsborough, Westford and Wilmington), we do have the numbers of the tax collector’s office in each town hall. For towns outside our district, we have only been able to suggest the callers try information for the correct telephone number. Today, we have added to our website an alphabetical listing of all Massachusetts cities and towns with a corresponding telephone number for local property tax information. So now, we’ll be able to suggest callers in search of out of district property tax information click on the “property tax info” link on our website.

XXXOOXXOO

It’s Valentine’s Day… flowers, hearts with arrows and candy (lots of candy.)Motivated by the media hype I looked into Valentines. According to historychannel.com legend has it that Valentine was a priest who served in the third century in Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius II. Claudius decided that wives and families adversely affected his soldiers. In response he outlawed marriage for young men and stocked his army with singles. Valentine, defied Claudius and continued to secretly marry young lovers. It wasn’t long before Claudius found out about the disobedient acts and, you guessed it, had Valentine put to death sounds like lore to me…but, let me continue. In 1835, Pope Gregory gave the remains (or what are believed to be the remains) of St Valentine to an Irish Priest during a visit to Rome. The remains are in a black and gold casket and still can be viewed every Valentine’s Day at the Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin Ireland (I think I’ll pass).
On a more scientific note…reserachers are saying that love really can break you heart. According to a study published in the Feb 10 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine ”Sudden, stressful events can cause some people’s tickers to give out in ways that mimic a heart attack". It’s called “broken heart syndrome.
For Valentine’s Day I am bringing my wife home a “complete” CD set of our Grantor indexes. Yup, from 1950-1976…Well, on second thought maybe I should stop at the florist.

Tinkering with the Website

As you may have noticed by now, we’ve made a few changes to www.lowelldeeds.com. It’s not exactly a redesign, just a new look with a different font and location for some links. We hope this doesn’t cause you any problems, but if it does, let us know right away (mailto:lowelldeeds@comcast.net) and we’ll roll it back to yesterday’s version. Make sure you check out the “registry-related documents” link. Through the years, we’ve accumulated many articles, memos and other documents that might be helpful to you. Rather than allow them to gather (electronic) dust on our hard drive, we’ve loaded them on the website in the Adobe PDF format. We’ll add more as time permits. In preparing for this update, I read some articles on the web about recent trends in web design. It seems everyone agrees that the hot new color for the Internet is brown. I didn’t put much credence in these opinions until I remembered that the Super Bowl XXXIX commemorative hats are brown and tan. If anyone is on top of the latest trends in marketing and making money, it’s the NFL, so I guess brown really is in. Several people have explained that it’s meant to create a link with the members of our military who have almost universally swapped their predominantly green woodland camouflage patterns for the tan and brown desert hues.

1966

Update on the registry's Registered Land back scanning project. As of February 1, Registered Land documents from instrument# 45,300(March 1, 1966) to present have been scanned and made available on both our in-house database and the Internet. The project has been on-going for about eight months and is progressing on schedule. If work continues at the present level it will be finished by the end of May. There is no indexing information available for these images so you need to know a document's instrument number to retrieve it.
When using the Internet follow the steps below to view images.
1.Enter the Land Records Database
2.Select the Document Tab
3.Select Registered Land as your department
4.Enter the Instrument number of the document you would like to retrieve
5.Click Search
6.An index entry will appear (see below). Click on the underlined Instrument number
7.You will see a message that reads No indexed property for this Instrument Number Ignore this message.
8.Click on Quick One Page Viewer.
9.The image will appear.
That's it...It is that simple.

Note: When the index information is obviously incomplete. The Type Description will indicate Conversion and the File Date defaults to 01/01/1901

Visitors to the Registry

A group from the Massachusetts Association of Tax Collectors and Treasurers visited the registry today. After a tour of our operations that followed the path that a document takes when it is recorded, we viewed a slideshow that depicts the electronic recording process. Town treasurers and tax collectors are prime candidates for electronic recording. Consider municipal lien certificates. Now, the customer sends a letter and a check requesting an MLC to town hall. Town employees enter data into a computer program and print an original MLC. That document is then mailed to the customer who requested it. He takes it to the registry and pays the recording fee. At the registry, we enter the data into our computer and scan the document to create an electronic image which become the official record. With electronic recording, there might never be a paper document produced. The customer requesting the MLC could send the request, the fee for the MLC and the registry recording fee to the Treasurer. The Treasurer would then enter the data needed to produce the MLC but instead of hitting the “print” button, he would click “send” and the data embedded in an electronic document template would be transmitted to the registry. It would arrive here as an incoming electronic recording package. Once accepted by us, the data and the document image would flow right into our computer system with no further scanning or data entry. This method would greatly increase the efficiency of the customer, the Treasurer and the Registry. Best of all, it’s not all that far away – months, not years.

Privacy

A website visitor sent me a thoughtful email questioning the ready availability of documents on our website in light of the ever increasing risk of identity theft. These documents contain names, signatures, addresses and some financial information (the amount of your mortgage or the amount you paid for your home). Back in 1999 when we first started talking about making document images available online, a number of people raised privacy concerns. At first, I would rather cavalierly answer that they were already public records, so why be concerned. Then I read an article by or quoting Judge John Fenton who framed the issue this way: a document reproduced in a dusty old record book on a shelf in the registry of deeds, while a public record, is only accessible to someone who physically travels to the registry, pulls the book off the shelf, and opens it to the correct page. Judge Fenton used the term “practical obscurity” to describe such a record. But put that same record online and anyone in the world with an Internet connection and a computer can see it with a few keystrokes. But as I read more about the Internet and privacy, I quickly concluded that all the momentum in this field is towards more speed and openness and, that while privacy concerns are certainly legitimate, they are probably best addressed by laws that severely penalize those who misuse this data. I know that our website has completely transformed the way that most people use the registry. The system has allowed registry users to be more productive, more efficient and waste less time. I don’t see how we’d ever turn back now. But privacy concerns are a legitimate topic, one that we should discuss again in the near future.

XXXIX

By now most people know the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl for the third time in four years…and most Americans watched it, myself included. But I would guess this morning there was more talk around America’s water coolers about the commercials than the game. Can’t you just hear it…”remember the one with the monkeys? And what about the frozen guy in the car…oh yeah, how about when the guy jumps out of a plane for a six pack of Bud”. A thirty second commercial during yesterday’s Super Bowl cost an incredible $2,400,000. Is it worth $2,400,000 to an advertiser for a “short” thirty seconds? The answer is simple…ask yourself…do you remember the one with the woman in front of the senate committee… or the one with the cat? (tell the truth)… And I’ll bet you can almost hear Deion Branch …“I’m going to Disney World”. Congrats Pats.

Super Bowl XXXIX

Everyone here at the registry is anxiously awaiting the outcome of Sunday’s game to learn whether the current Golden Age of Boston Sports will continue. In a very short period of time we’ve witnessed two Patriot victories in the Super Bowl and the historic World Series win by the Red Sox last fall. Here’s a brief recap of Super Bowl appearances by the Eagles and the Patriots, courtesy of the official NFL Super Bowl XXXIX program ($15 online or at Barnes & Noble).

Super Bowl XV – January 25, 1981 – New Orleans Superdome – Oakland 27, Philadelphia 10. The Raiders became the first wild card team to capture a Super Bowl title. Oakland quarterback Jim Plunkett was the MVP.

Super Bowl XX – January 26, 1986 – New Orleans Superdome – Chicago 46, New England 10. The Bears, led by quarterback Jim McMahon and a ferocious defense, embarrassed the Patriots who gained only seven yards rushing and had their quarterback (Tony Eason then Steve Grogan) sacked seven times.

Super Bowl XXXI – January 26, 1997 – New Orleans Superdome – Green Bay 35, New England 21. The Patriots, led by Drew Bledsoe and Curtis Martin, were still in this game, pulling to within six points (27-21) when Green Bay’s Desmond Howard returned the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown (the first time in Super Bowl history that had happened). To me, the rest of the game dragged on and on.

Super Bowl XXXVI – February 3, 2002 – New Orleans Superdome – New England 20, St Louis 17. The Belichick-Brady legend is born. After several early season losses, starting QB Drew Bledsoe was seriously injured in a game against the Jets. Tom Brady took over and never relinquished the job. Big underdogs against the “Greatest Show on Turf,” the Patriots jumped to a big lead, only to see the Rams tie the game late in the fourth quarter. With less than two minutes and no timeouts, Brady drove the Pats downfield allowing Adam Vinatieri to kick a game winning 48 yard field goal as time expired, the first time in Super Bowl history that the game was won on the last play.

Super Bowl XXXVIII – February 1, 2004 – Houston’s Reliant Stadium – New England 32, Carolina 29. The Panthers, who had gone something like 1-15 the previous season, were the Cinderella team of the NFC. The Patriots, who had a down year after winning the Super Bowl (Tampa Bay won in between) were the heavy favorites. The first half was a defensive struggle with the Patriots ahead by a field goal. In the second half, both offenses awoke and Carolina tied the game with time running out. Brady again led the team downfield and Vinatieri kicked the winning field goal with 4 seconds to play.

Adobe Acrobat 7.0

I attended a seminar today that introduced Adobe Acrobat 7.0, the latest version of the program that creates the PDF documents that we've started using so often on our website. PDF stands for "portable document format." The idea is to make the "reader" part of the program freely available to anyone who want to use it. Many have, since more than 750 million people across the globe have downloaded it. To create a PDF file, you need the full program (which is certainly not free). With Acrobat, you're able to take a document in almost any format (Word, Excel, or an image of some type) and, by one click of your mouse, make it a PDF document. This is the format we use to present our monthly sales and foreclosure reports (coming soon for January) and the 1951-1975 Grantor Index on CD. But we're only scratching the surface of the capabilities of this program. Today's seminar, at New Horizons (a national computer instruction company) in Waltham was taught by Mark Sawyer, a former newsman at the old WLLH radio station in Lowell. Mark did a great job. He not only introduced the product, he inspired those in the class to imagine all the possible uses for it in the work flow of our respective offices. I certainly did. You'll be hearing more about that in the near future.

Follow Up

Follow up to an earlier Blog: Last week I had the opportunity to talk with James Palma, Research Manager for the Donahue Institute of the University of Massachusetts. Mr. Palma was one of the primary people involved with a recent poll conducted by the Donahue Institute regarding housing in Massachusetts. The results of this poll have been widely discussed in the media and of course, this registry’s Blog. After polling 509 randomly selected people the Donahue Institute discovered that 46% said either they or an immediately family members had considered moving out of Massachusetts. Palma said the question specifically asked if housing was the reason for the re-location consideration. “Why poll 500 people?” I asked Palma. He said studies have shown that the infamous (+ or -5%) margin of error did not change with much larger samples. The Citizens Housing and Planning Association, a housing advocacy group, contracted the poll. Palma says CHAPA uses the information to work for legislation that will facilitate the availability of affordable housing in Massachusetts. I was a little curious… has Caller ID in anyway effected the valid of polls. According to him it has not…but I wonder.

Website Problems

My apologies to all who were inconvenienced by the recent problem with our website. One of the reasons we’ve done so many innovative things at this registry is that we aren’t afraid to try things on our own. If every time we had an idea we had to wait for funding or an outside expert, we wouldn’t get much accomplished. By tackling projects in house with free or reasonably priced resources, we’ve produced results. The downside to this approach is that you sometimes make beginner mistakes. That’s kind of what happened with our website this past week. I simply forgot to renew the registration on our domain name and the company hosting it just shut it off. Usually, you get bombarded with renewal notices beforehand but in this case we did not receive a single one. Still, that doesn’t excuse the sloppiness on my part. I’ll spend the next few days scrutinizing the operation of our website so that this or anything like this doesn’t happen again. But no one is perfect, so be sure to remember the alternate route to our database - go to www.masslandrecords.com and select Middlesex North from the drop down menu. Until another disaster occurs, however, please continue to access our records through www.lowelldeeds.com so that you will discover the new content and features that will soon be added to the site.

Governor's Budget Recommendation

Governor Romney filed his FY2006 budget recommendation yesterday. Known as House 1, this bill starts the budgetary process for the next fiscal year which begins on July 1, 2005 and ends on June 30, 2006. The Governor’s proposal is really just a recommendation to the state legislature, because the House of Representatives and the Senate create the final state budget. (The Governor certainly retains his veto authority, so he continues to play a role in the process, as well). Now, the House and Senate will both formulate their own budgets. If both of these bodies agree on the funding for a certain entity, then that agreed amount will be in the final budget. But because the priorities of the House and Senate sometimes differ, any items that don’t agree (that is, if the House recommends one amount, but the Senate recommends another) that item must go to a Conference Committee. That committee is made up of a handful of key members from both houses. They work together to resolve the differences. The report that ultimately is issued by the conference committee most likely becomes the final state budget. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that we’ve been anxiously awaiting the governor’s budget to see if this registry’s funding was increased sufficiently to allow us to lease space for a new registry in the coming fiscal year. The governor did recommend a 12% increase in our budget which presumably is intended to begin funding the movement process. If the legislature concurs with the governor’s strategy of moving registries into leased space, perhaps this extra funding will carry over into the final state budget. You can see the governor's recommendation for each state registry by following the "What's New" link on the home page of our website (www.lowelldeeds.com).

High Housing

An interesting poll conducted by the University of Massachusetts' Donahue Institute was released in this morning’s newspapers. A survey of 509 people found that roughly 46% of Bay State residents reported they or an immediate family member were considering moving out of Massachusetts. The report was commissioned by a non-profit housing advocacy group called the “Citizens Housing and Planning Association”. The report sites high housing costs as a main consideration for re-location. In 1999 a similar UMass poll found that 11% were considering re-location, 19% in 2001 and 32% in 2002. Aaron Gornstein, Executive Director of Citizens Housing and Planning Association believes a large segment of the state’s work force is finding itself priced out of the housing market. Of course, the many benefits offered in Massachusetts are part of what is fueling the strong housing market. But one can not deny that these statistics show an overwhelming need for affordable housing in the state.

Notaries and Recording Copies of Documents

An attorney raised an interesting question today. She pointed out that Governor Romney’s Executive Order of last year regarding the duties and responsibilities of notaries included a section (5g) that states “A notary shall certify a copy by using substantially the following form: ‘On this 25th day of January 2005, I certify that the preceding document is a true, exact, complete, and unaltered copy made by me of the Affidavit of John Doe, presented to me by John Doe.’ Signature and seal of notary.” The question was: does the preceding section of the Notary Order allow copies of documents so certified to be recorded at the registry of deeds? It seems, not surprisingly, that some registries permit this practice; others do not. For the time being, the Lowell Registry will be with those that reject such a document, the notary certification notwithstanding. The copy versus original issue is much broader than the specific question posed above. I think that UETA (the Uniform Electronic Transaction Act), by stating that any law that requires an original document or an original signature is satisfied by the electronic equivalent of the document and signature, actually allows a photocopy of any original document to be recorded, even without any notary certification. What is a photocopy but an electronic image of an original duplicated on another sheet of paper? Don’t get me wrong, we’re not allowing photocopies to be recorded here in Lowell, but I think that is a reasonable interpretation of UETA. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Sorry if anyone was inconvenienced by the registry being closed yesterday because of this past weekend’s big snowstorm. Several of us actually showed up at the registry yesterday morning ready to open for business, but the courthouse had been ordered closed and building safety and security dictates that the public cannot enter the building without the security checkpoint being staffed. So, when the courthouse is closed, the registry must be closed as well.

tweaking

All standardized tests, the MCAS, the GRE and the LSAT included, need adjustments from time to time. And so I feel no embarrassment when I say our presidential trivia quiz is no different. The initial quiz results seem to indicate that it too needs a little tweaking (Hey, I put the thing together and I could only answer nine of the fifteen questions correctly).
People seem to have enjoyed taking the quiz so I have made a few changes below. I have substituted some of the more obscure questions and added hints. Remember "keep your eyes on your own computer". As before the answers are in the comments section below. Good Luck!

Question number 13, (Who was the only bachelor president), substituted with
Which president played the saxophone? Hint: He sometimes acts like a bachelor.

Question # 5 (Who was the first president to give a radio speech), substitute with
What was Dwight Eisenhower’s nickname? Hint: If you put a “B” before it you could ride it.

Question # 8 (Who was the first president to move into the White House), substitute with
The newspapers erroneously declared this president a loser to Thomas Dewey. Hint: He was from Missouri

Question # 4 (Who was the only president not elected by the people?) substitute with
This president congratulated the astronauts when they landed on the moon? Hint: His middle name was “Milhous”.

Question # 6 (Which president loved peas?) substitute with
This president was a fighter pilot who was shot down during WWII? Hint: He got rescued

Clarifications Forthcoming

Two recording-related areas have created some confusion recently: multiple documents and subdivision plans. We are working on clarifying our policies regarding both. I've written about multiple documents in the recent past, so I'll try not to repeat myself. The latest question arose over a document that appointed a successor trustee and then had the successor trustee sign to indicate he accepted the appointment. Is that a single document or is it two? Because I tend to come down on the side of charging customers the less rather than more, my preference is to treat it as a single document, to index it that way, and charge the fee for a single document. I'm trying to compile a list of all document types that could possibly be seen as "multiple documents." Once we have our list, I will post it in a way that will clearly indicate how the document is to be handled here. That should help our users correctly calculate the recording fees due. The other area we hope to clarify are the requirements for recording plans. Several areas of Massachusetts law, especially chapter 41 (subdivision control law) are quite explicit in telling registers of deeds what plans can and cannot be recorded. While I think we are substantially in compliance with the requirements of the law, we are reviewing our procedures to ensure complete compliance. Once we have finished our analysis, we will produce a document that states the various requirements. That document will be made available to all of our users. This may also mean that subdivision plans that have previously been accepted for recording under our liberal reading of the rules might, in the future, be rejected for noncompliance. But, as I said, we will keep you posted.

Presidential Trivia

How about some Presidential Trivia on the day before George Bush takes the oath of office for his second term? OK…Let’s go… I have rated the questions on a difficulty level from 1-5 with 5 being the most difficult. For the answers click the "comment section" below.
1.Difficulty Level 4: Besides George and George Bush what are the names of the other father son presidents?
2.Difficulty Level 5: What was the name of the New Hampshire poet that recites one of his poems during the JFK inauguration?
3.Difficulty Level 3: Who was the oldest person ever elected president?
4.Difficulty Level 4: Who was the only president not elected by the people?
5.Difficulty Level 5: Who was the first president to give a radio speech?
6.Difficulty Level 10 (that’s tough on a scale of 1-5): Which president’s favorite vegetable was peas??? Hint he grew his own in Virginia?
7.Difficulty Level 4: Let’s keep this Registry related. This president was a Land Surveyor by trade.
8.Difficulty Level 4: Who was the first president to move into the white house?
9.Difficulty Level 8 (it’s a tuffy): Who was the first president that was born a US citizen?
10.Difficulty Level 5: Which President served only one month in office?
11.Difficulty Level 3: Which president is pictured on the $50.00 bill?
12.Difficulty Level 3: Who served as both the 22nd and 24th president?
13.Difficulty Level 5: Who was the only bachelor president?
14.Difficulty Level 3: Who was the first modern president that did not wear a hat during his inauguration?
15.Difficulty Level 3: Which state is considered the mother of presidents with eight presidents born there?

The KISS Principle

When it comes to managing computer projects, I’ve learned to follow the KISS principle (which stands for “keep it simple, stupid”). While computer systems seem complicated by nature, asking them to do too much, to be all things to all users, almost guarantees that the computer system won’t satisfy anyone. I was reminded of this last week when I saw “FBI May Scrap Vital Overhaul of Its Outdated Computer System” as the headline on the front page of the newspaper. The article states that the Bureau has already spent $170 million dollars searching for a customized replacement system for the obsolete and ineffective system now in place, but that the effort thus far is about to be scrapped as unworkable. I vaguely recall something similar happening with the Massachusetts Trial Court a number of years ago. The court spent millions of dollars to develop a “one size fits all” computer system that would serve all of its departments, but the effort never yielded a workable system. Here are my observations, for what they’re worth: Because computer technology changes so quickly, a custom built system for a governmental entity is doomed to fail since by the time it is ready to be installed (remember, governmental entities work at their own pace), it will already be obsolete. It’s much better to go with an existing system that’s modified to best fit your needs. Also, many people who don’t have a good understanding of how computers work look to them as the solution to all of their problems. The reality is that the computer is just one more tool you can use to improve the way you do your job. If you ask it to do too much, you will be very disappointed. But that’s enough pontificating for today . . .

Full Bubble Mode

According to a report by Michael Youngblood of the investment-banking firm Friedman Billings and Ramsey, the Massachusetts real estate market is still in “ full bubble mode”. This comes as no surprise to anyone that is looking to purchase real estate, sell real estate or just follows the market. But an interesting conclusion stated by Youngblood is that the bubble “won’t burst anytime soon”. Of course, this is great relief to those of us who have recently purchase real estate (it makes waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat…shall we say…a little less necessary). But…the scary part of the report states that the ratio of median home prices to per capita income is as high today as it was in the late 1980’s. Unfortunately, anyone associated with the real estate market during the late 80’s and early 90’s (yours truly) remembers that it was the beginning of a multi-year downward cycle. But those were the days of 12% interest rates. The fact that consumers are willing to spend a large percentage of their income on housing expenses is a strong indicator of their high confidence in the real estate market. The thinking is simple…”if I pay $300,000 for a house today, it will be worth $330,000 in a year”. Youngblood predicts that the bubble is not going to burst in the immediate future. His report says that the economy would have to shrink for a minimum of four straight quarters before housing prices begin to fall. The report was based on data collected in July, August and September of this year. During this period sales of single-family homes increased 6% while prices soared 11 % to a median statewide average of 350,000. .

Update

Update on our Marginal Reference project: We just completed our 7th day of working on the project. Up to this point we have finished entering marginal references from over fifty record books. The books being entered in this second project phase are in the 2000 series. Most of the books in this series are approximately 700 pages long. A quick look at the data reveals that each book contains around 350 marginal references. Most documents have one or two references, but we have come across some with as many as twenty. Many of the Record Books in the first phase of the project dealt with the Condo boom years. During these years some Master Deeds had as many as eighty marginal references. The marginal references project is our number one information enhancement project. We’ll keep you informed.

Multiple Documents

Multiple documents continue to cause confusion. The latest instance was a Scrivener’s Error Affidavit. Massachusetts General Laws chapter 183, section 5B states “an affidavit made by a person claiming to have personal knowledge of the facts therein stated and containing a certificate by an attorney at law that the facts stated in the affidavit are relevant to the title to certain land and will be of benefit and assistance in clarifying the chain of title may be filed for record and shall be recorded in the registry of deeds where the land or any part thereof lies.” Is this merely an affidavit (with a recording fee of $75) or is it a multiple document, a combination of an affidavit and a certificate (with a recording fee of $150)? Personally, I would treat this as a single document and charge one fee, but I understand that even within this registry, we might handle it either way. If we can’t even be consistent within this same office, it’s doubtful that all registries are doing things exactly the same. It’s exceedingly difficult to formulate an easy to apply rule that distinguishes between single and multiple documents. Some documents are clearly multiples – today we recorded one that assigned four different mortgages from four different borrowers on four different properties with four different book and page references. Based on our indexing practices, this has to be treated like four different documents even though it was all contained on a single piece of paper. But other documents, such as the Scrivener’s Error Affidavit, create a less compelling case to be treated as a multiple document. I’ll be returning to this topic in the near future since it certainly requires some clarification. In the meantime, I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on this topic, so please leave some comments.

50,000

We broke fifty thousand, instrument number fifty thousand that is. Well instrument number fifty thousand of our Registered Land back scanning project. The first 12,000 Registered Land documents were previously scanned. This means we only have 38,000 documents left to complete the project. It may sound like a lot, but it is not when you considered that we have already scanned 122,000 documents. This is truly an impressive accomplishment by our employees. We hope to finish scanning the remaining documents by spring. Instruments 1-12,000 & 70,000-80,000 were scanned a few years back using an in-house program called “Image Inquiry”. These images are available to the public but not on our ACS computer system. This is sufficient for now but not the ideal sitauion. The plan for the future is to move these images from “Image Inquiry” to the ACS system. We are hoping this is an easy procedure.

Look, That Computer Has A Dry-Cycle

As I have mentioned before I am a gadget lover. The Consumer Electronics show took place in Las Vegas this week. This is the biggest “gadget show” in the US. Many of the items displayed this year were digital hybrids. Today's Tech world is bringing the interconnection of digital devices limited only by the imagination. A company called Aigo offers watches that store music, photos and computer files. Coming in April Taiwan’s BenQ will debut a mobile phone disguised as a digital camera (“Hey, why do you have that camera pointing in your ear?” ). Of all these new gadgets, the one I love the most is BenQ’s latest computer monitor. It has five adjustable arms that can be arranged around the screen. One offers a mirror, another a light, one a Webcam, another a microphone and I think the fifth is a can opener. After I finished reading Reuters’ article on the electronic show I started thinking… maybe next year the registry of deeds could participate. How about a Grantor Index book that is also a cellphone? It might be a little heavy but look how convenient it would be for calling the office. And what about a public access computer terminal that is also a High Definition DVR. You could watch your favorite soaps while running down a name? And what about a watch that stores ALL Middlesex North’s images and indexes? If it did that I'll bet people wouldn't even care if it told time. How about a Recording Terminal that is also an audio player that holds 1,000 songs in MP3 compression format and…also allows the user to listen to 20 preset FM radio stations. Wow…wouldn’t that be useful? Since the registry doesn’t have any of these gadgets yet and the conference is next January…I better get to work. Anyone seen my hammer?

Snowstorms

Snowstorms usually result in many customer calls to the registry inquiring if we intend to close early. Although that hardly ever happens, it’s always wise to call ahead to check. For future reference, here’s a general statement of our policy: if security closes this courthouse because of inclement weather, the registry also closes since the public would be unable to get into the building. Other than that, we typically stay open during our normal hours of operation, regardless of the weather. (When the road conditions deteriorate during the day, we sometimes send part of the staff home early, but we always keep our essential operations open). Every five years or so, we’ve had a major storm during the overnight hours. Such a storm usually results in television reports that the governor has “declared a state of emergency” and that only “essential state personnel” should report to work. As ominous as that sounds, it doesn’t really apply to the registry of deeds. We work for the Secretary of State, so it’s up to him to decide weather-related closures. Besides, the Secretary considers registry employees essential, so we’d have to come to work anyway. If the TV announces that “all state buildings are closed” there’s a good chance that we will be closed, too. It never hurts to call ahead.

Grantor Indexes 1951-60 & 1961-66

We’ve completed scanning the Grantor index books from 1951- 1960 and 1961-1965. People interested in obtaining copies may do so in our Customer Service office. Like the 1966-1976 index, these are electronic books. We scanned the pages of the existing bound indexes and saved them as Adobe PDF files, one file per letter. Then we constructed a table of contents for each letter. The Indexes are very simple to use. The table of contents consists of the first name that appears on each page and the corresponding page number. Open the correct letter file, browse through the table of contents until you find a name close to the one you’re searching and then use the “Go To” function to jump to that page. These electronic books are available free to anyone that wants them. Simply provide us with the necessary CD’s and we will make you a copy. For the 1951-1960 index we need one CD, for the 1961-1965 one CD and the 1966-1975 index requires two CD’s. Since these PDF files are very large, presently there are no plans to make this information available on the Internet. Once again bring your CD’s to Customer Service. Bring two for the new sets (51-60 & 61-65) and four if you would like the entire series. Normally we can provide copies of the Indexes the same day.

Happy Anniversary

Today is the 10th anniversary of my tenure as Register of Deeds. Shortly after 4:00 p.m. on January 5, 1995, Superior Court Clerk Edward Sullivan administered the oath of office to me as Register and to Tony Accardi as Assistant Register. It’s hard to believe that we’ve been here for that long. In 1995, the registry had 35 employees, a budget of $1.35 million, and 60,000 documents were recorded. Now, we have 26 employees, a budget of $1.24 million, and in this past year recorded 96,204 documents for this registry plus another 48,784 at our Middlesex South satellite office for a total of 144,988. In 1995, there were four computer terminals that could, if you were willing to wait a couple of minutes, display one on the handful of document images that had been scanned. Back then, the index began with 1987, so you had eight years available on the computer. Now, every document from 1950 to the present (more than 5 million pages) is available 24 hours per day, seven days per week on our website. The searchable index has been pushed back to 1976 and our “index on CD” goes back to 1951. (That’s right, we’ve scanned grantor index books from 1951 to 1975 and have those books available on a set of four CDs for the bargain price of four blank CDs – more on this later this week). Anyway, thanks to everyone who helped make these past ten years so enjoyable and rewarding. I must single out Assistant Register Tony Accardi for special recognition. Everything that we’ve done has been a complete team effort; without Tony’s help, it would not have been possible.

Satellite Office Statistics

Our satellite recording office for the Middlesex South Registry of Deeds has been open for 18 months now. Customers are able to record any document that would otherwise be recorded in Cambridge (EXCEPT for registered land documents and plans) from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Recording is done while you wait and certified copies are prepared immediately. Usually there’s no line and, when there is, it moves very quickly. We’ve kept track of the number of documents recorded at the satellite office since its inception. The monthly totals plus the percentage that the documents recorded here represent of Cambridge’s overall recordings are shown below:

Month Docs Recorded % of Camb total
Dec 2004...........4073.......16%
November.........3679........14%
October.............3514.........16%
September........3992........17%
August...............4081........14%
July....................4628........14%
June...................4757.........14%
May....................5004........16%
April...................5339.........17%
March................3556..........13%
February...........3220.........12%
January.............2941..........13%

Dec 2003...........3651..........14%
November.........3718...........14%
October.............5714............15%
September........8274............19%
August.............13352............28%
July..................14729............26%

Marginal References

Tomorrow we will re-start our "marginal reference project". This project's ultimate goal is to electronically capture every marginal references in our record books. Sounds like a massive undertaking? Yes, it is. And it is tedious. Here's the process. An employee flips through a record book page-by-page searching for references. When a refernece is found the employee enters it into an Access Database. When the project is completed all the information will be converted and transfered to our ACS computer system. At that point the public will have access both from the Internet and at the registry. It is a very time consuming, but essential project. Last summer we completed the first phase of the "marginal reference" project. It dealt with book 4216 (September 1987) to book 2179 (December 1976). September 1987 is the year the Wang Computer System was installed in Middlesex North and 1976 is the last year of our computer indexes. The goal of the project's second phase is book 1135 (1950), where our images stop. Both Wang and our present ACS Computer system allow an employee to enter marginal references at the time of recording. The projects value is tremendous. Marginal references must be available eletronically before the next generation of registries can arrive.