Watermarks on documents

An early draft of the Formatting Standards contained a prohibition on recording documents that contained a “watermark” but the final version that is contained in the current Deed Indexing Standards is silent on the watermark issue. That is unfortunate, because we have started to receive death certificates that have the word “copy” embedded throughout as a watermark. Presumably this is someone in government’s effort to prevent the copying of these documents so that people will be forced to purchase multiple copies of the document rather than relying on photocopies. It couldn’t be to prevent attempts to pass off photocopies as originals since all original death certificates always bear the raised seal of the issuing office, a physical change to the document that certainly can’t be reproduced by a copying machine. While I don’t want to question the motives of whomever designed this anti-copying system, I wll say that they have really messed up the ability of the registry of deeds to include such documents in our records. As you can see from this document, the watermark that was nearly invisible on the original has completely obscurred all meaningful information on the scanned copy in the official records of the registry of deeds - all but the social security number of the deceased which I have manually redacted with the blue box. I expect to raise this issue of unreproduceable death certificates at future meetings of the registers of deeds association so that we can take collective action to preserve the integrity of our land records.

Same sex marriage and home ownership

A lawyer recently asked about the proper wording on a deed that was conveying a house to a same sex married couple who wanted to hold as tenants by the entirety. According to a memo from the Land Court dated May 6, 2004, the proper form would be “A and B, as tenants by the entirety” without any mention of “husband and wife” or “a married couple.” There’s no problem if that language is included, but it is not required and its absence is of no consequence. With same sex marriage having been legal in Massachusetts since early 2004, property ownership by same sex spouses is becoming more and more common.

National Lumber amendment

I have long been amazed by the nonchalance the Bar displays with regard to the “National Lumber” decision by the Massachusetts Appeals Court. To refresh your recollection, that case held that a document’s priority relative to other documents is established when it is physically received by the registry of deeds; not by when it is actually recorded. Let’s say you represent the buyer of a parcel of real estate at a closing scheduled at the registry at 10 a.m. tomorrow. The closing goes smoothly, you do your rundown, record and disburse the funds by 10:15 a.m. At 11:00 a.m., a full 45 minutes after you have finished at the registry, we record a new mortgage on that same property, granted by the person who just sold to your client. “Not a problem,” you conclude, since this new mortgage went on record after the deed into your client. But what if that new mortgage arrived by Fedex and we had signed for that package at 9:55 a.m. Fedex being an efficient company, it has precise records establishing when their delivery person relinquished custody of the package containing that document to the registry. When you apply the holding of National Lumber to these facts, you’re out of luck – you’ve missed a mortgage that has priority over your deed. Call your carrier.

The state’s registers of deeds recognize the havoc that could result from the holding of this case so we’ve proposed legislation that would rectify this problem. A bill was recently filed but has not yet received a number (when it does, I’ll make another post). Here’s the language:

“No deed or instrument shall be considered to have been received by the register of left for record until said deed or instrument has been approved for recording by the register and an instrument number or document number of book and page has been assigned to said deed or instrument.”

Old indexes: get your copies now

Those of you who come to the registry and use our public search computers are familiar with our electronic version of the pre-1976 indexes. Everything back to 1629, both Grantor and Grantee, are available as “electronic books” in PDF format. For the past three years, we have tried repeatedly to make these indexes available on their website. Given their electronic size, that’s been a challenge. We were making real progress when the current budget crisis struck, forcing us to cut funds that had been allocated for the completion of that project and prompting us to alter our strategy.

Recently, registry employees began a massive back indexing project. We have began with documents recorded in 1975 and are indexing them directly into our computer system without regard to the manner in which they were previously indexed. This will ensure that the data in our searchable database is consistent and in compliance with the latest deed indexing standards. Despite our best efforts, this will be a lengthy project. In the meantime, we have decided to once again make the indexes in PDF format available to you in electronic form for your own use.

Formerly, we asked you to provide us with a set of CDs upon which we would copy the various indexes. This required more than a dozen CDs, making it very difficult for us to physically copy that many disks for the number of customers who wanted the data. But as is often the case, technology may have come to our rescue. The combined Grantor and Grantee indexes from 1629 to 1976 total 12.5 gigabytes of storage space. Today, you can purchase a “thumb drive” also known as a “flash drive” of 16 gigabyte capacity for about $40 (at Walmart, at least). So, if you wish to obtain a copy of our indexes, next time you come to the registry, bring a blank 16GB flash drive with you and we’ll make you a copy that you can then add to any and all of your computers.

Launch of indexing project approaches

Today we introduced our new indexing project to a group of registry employees. Commencing next week, we will begin indexing documents recorded prior to 1976 in reverse chronological order. While most of today’s discussion dealt with technical matters related to our computers and software, some substantive items were discussed. Here are four of them:

Index names and addresses in accordance with the current Deed Indexing Standards

“Thirty years ago, documents looked a lot different than they do now. For example, many mortgages look just like deeds. Look for either “quitclaim covenants” (makes it a deed) or “mortgage covenants” (makes it a mortgage).”

“Try to avoid indexing things as MULTIPLES even though you will see quite a few of them. Try to decide which is the dominant document and use that for the document type. For instance, a Deed might also contain a Vote – call it a Deed – or a Mortgage might also contain an Assignment – call that a Mortgage but be sure to add to the index the name of the party to whom it is being assigned to the index.”

“If the property address on a deed is not clearly identified (and in older deeds it usually isn’t), just leave that field blank. Do not use a street name from the description in the STREET field. ”

Watch for additional blog entries on this topic as the project progresses.

"How do I take someone's name off of my deed?"

A name is never physically removed from a deed. To "take someone's name off of a deed" means conveying that person's interest in the property back to you or to someone else.

If that person is still alive, this conveyance is done by recording a new deed (one that conveys the property from him to you or someone else). The filing fee for recording a new deed is $125. There is no blank form available to use in creating the new deed. We strongly recommend using an attorney to prepare the new deed.

The procedure is different if the person whose name is to be removed is deceased. In the case of married couples, most own real estate as "tenants by the entirety" which means there is a right of survivorship. When one spouse dies, his interest in the property is extinguished and the surviving spouse automatically becomes the sole owner of the property. There is no need to create a new deeds since nothing is being transferred. To show the change in ownership, however, a death certificate for the deceased spouse should be recorded at the registry of deeds. The filing fee for a death certificate is $75.

If the deceased co-owner was not a spouse, then an automatic transfer also occurs if the co-owners held the property as "joint tenants" - look at the deed by which you and the decedent became owners to determine if this is the case. If it says "joint tenants" you need only record a death certificate. If it says "tenants in common" however, there is no right of survivorship and the decedent's estate must be probated to convey ownership of his portion of the property to someone else.

"How do I put another name on my deed?"

"Put another name on my deed" means that you want to make someone else a a co-owner of your property. To do this, you must convey an interest in the property to that person. You do this by creating a new deed that conveys an interest in the property from you (the current owner) to you and the new co-owner. This new deed should then be recorded at the registry of deeds. The filing fee for a deed is $125.

If you are selling this interest in the property to the other person, you (the seller) must also pay an excise tax based on the sales price. The tax rate is $2.28 per $500 (although a sale for $100 or less is exempt from the tax).

The registry does not provide blank deed forms. Technically, you can prepare a new deed yourself, but we strongly advise you to hire an attorney to do this for you. There are many consequences to owning a property jointly with another, so besides preparing the deed, an attorney will also advise you and your options and their consequences.

To queue or not to queue

One of the assumptions about electronic recording that I’ve been operating under is that for the system to reach a mature, fully utilized state, we must first have an electronic queuing system that regulates the order of walk-in customers and electronically submitted documents. Now I’m not so sure if that’s necessary. In theory, the queue is a good idea. When a walk-in customer arrives at the registry, he first stops and a registration kiosk and enters his name and the number of documents he has to record after which he is assigned a sequential number representing his place in the queue. Incoming electronic recordings would automatically be assigned numbers in the same queue. Registry recording clerks would process the documents in the order presented by the queue. This would keep electronic recordings that arrived at busy times from being neglected in favor of human beings standing in line with documents to be recorded. While such a queue would prevent e-recordings from being forgotten, there are other ways to accomplish that same task that don’t carry the downside of the queue. What down side? What if a major national lender suddenly sends two dozen mortgages electronically. They would take up 24 places in the queue and all would have to be processed by the registry staff before any customer who subsequently arrived in person could be waited on. That’s not how it works now. Today, a customer with many documents goes to a single recording terminal and we begin entering his documents while the next customers go to other recording terminals without having to wait for the first customer to have all of his documents recording. A queuing system would prevent us from doing even that. What is required is a disciplined approach to processing electronic recordings that handles them quickly but with common sense.

Electronic Recording update

Last week, the Plymouth County Registry of Deeds began accepting deeds submitted electronically with excellent result, I’m told. Plymouth had launched electronic recording several months ago but had deferred taking deeds until now. Plymouth now joins Middlesex North as full-service electronic recording registries. Hampden County (Springfield) is also accepting documents filed electronically, but it’s my understanding that neither deeds nor mortgages are permitted as of yet. Other registries are inching closer to activating electronic recording systems. While the number of documents we receive electronically varies from day to day, throughout August we were routinely recording more than 20 electronic documents on many days which, with the very slow pace of overall recording activity, would represent more than 10% of our daily volume. As more registries turn on the system, I believe that our volume of e-recordings will rise substantially.

Electronic Recording update

Earlier today I spent some time with other Massachusetts registers and representatives of ACS, Browntech, Ingeo, LandData and Simplifile discussing electronic recording in the Commonwealth. The good news is that two registries besides Middlesex North have commended e-recording. Register John Buckley of Plymouth County reported that they have already recorded more than 800 documents and have found the system to work “very well.” Because Plymouth has long operated two satellite recording offices, their users were already comfortable doing rundowns that involved documents they never saw, so they were mentally ready to accept e-recording. The folks from the Hamden County Registry of Deeds (in Springfield) had a similar report. They’ve only done about 50 documents but described the process as “flawless” and have rejected only four documents, all because they were registered land. Overall, the folks in attendance seemed optimisitc that the widespread rollout of electronic recording might very well become a reality in Massachusetts during 2008.

E-Recording spreads

At a recent gathering of all of the state’s registers of deeds, we received updates on the state of electronic recording around the Commonwealth. As readers of this blog know, we have been recording documents electronically here in Lowell since June 2005 with more than 5000 documents finding their way into our records via this means. Now, three other registries have joined us: Plymouth began electronic recording back in late 2007. They are proceeding gradually, just accepting discharges from a few local customers right now. Hampden (in Springfield) has been working closely with a company called LandData and that registry is ready to launch its e-recording system. And Worcester is in final meetings with ACS and Simplifile to allow both of those companies to submit documents.

E-Recording progress

Earlier this week at the Fall Register of Deeds meeting, we discussed how to move forward with electronic recording. Right now, Lowell has been recording documents electronically for more than two years, having recorded 5000+ documents by that method. Now, some of the registries that still are within county government (and who therefore retain more technological independence) are moving forward in a tangible way and should start receiving documents electronically in the coming weeks. The registries that are within the Secretary of State’s office have been on hold, more or less, and the reason for that has not been entirely clear to me. Now, however, we have a plan for moving forward. We will document the electronic recording process and take it to you, the potential users. If you (and representatives of the title insurance industry) find it acceptable, we should be able to turn electronic recording on at all of the registries. It really won’t take off (i.e., be widely accepted by our users) until that happens because if you’re going to go to the effort to learn how to do electronic recording and set up your internal processes to handle it, you’ll want to do it universally, not at just a handful of registries. There’s no timetable yet but hopefully we’ll have something to share with you all by Thanksgiving.

E-Recording seminar aftermath

About 30 people attended the Simplifile electronic recording seminar this past Tuesday at the DoubleTree Hotel in Lowell. Simplifile’s president even flew in from the companies headquarters in Utah. The local rep, Paul Roth (a Burlington, MA attorney) first demonstrated the Simplifile customer interface. At their most basic level, all electronic recording software allows a user to transmit images of original documents along with data about the document that is entered by the customer to the registry for immediate recording. Paul took the presentation up to pressing the “send to the registry” button at which time I took over, showing how the registry processes incoming electronic recordings. In the questions that followed, the audience of experienced real estate lawyers seemed most interested in the “gap” that exists betwen the final rundown on the registry’s website and the time of recording. Everyone recognizes that this is typically only a few minutes, but it is something that must be addressed. Right now, it seems that most title insurance companies are perfectly willing to cover that gap although they don’t seem to be putting anything in writing so far. Although this meeting was hosted and arranged by Simplifile, I’ve already done another such meeting with eRX, another company that does e-recording with us and I will make myself available to any company or group that has an interest in discussing e-recording.

LowellDeeds Blog has moved

This should be the last post to the Blogger interface for the LowellDeeds Blog. We've completed our transition to a new blog interface that's an integral part of our website. All prior postings from here have been successfully imported into the new blog although we are still fine-tuning its appearance and functionality. If you have this blog bookmarked or stored in your "favorites," please change the link to www.lowelldeeds.com/blog which is our new home. Thanks to Blogger for the wonderful service it provides.

New Blog Format

Thank you to our readers for your patience over the past few days. We've been transitioning to new software for our blog. The new format will provide many new features and will allow us to categorize our postings, so if you're interested in electronic recording, for example, you need only click on the "electronic recording" category and all postings pertinent to that topic will display regardless of when they were posted. There's still some fine tuning to be done, but it might be live as early as tomorrow. If not then, we'll unveil it early next week. If you'd like a peek at it, follow this link - http://www.lowelldeeds.com/blog/ - but remember, it's still under construction.

1630-1855 Records

The Middlesex North Registry of Deeds opened its doors in July of 1855. Prior to that all records for our ten communities (Billerica, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Dracut, Dunstable, Lowell, Tewksbury, Tyngsborough, Westford, Wilmington) were held in the Middlesex Registry of Deeds in Cambridge (we now call this registry Middlesex South). When Middlesex North opened, these records were copied by hand and sent to the new registry here in Lowell. These old “Middlesex South” records contain documents from 1630 to 1855. Recently we began to explore possible ways of digitizing these records and making them available both on the Internet and CDs. Their value to genealogists and historians particularly can’t be overstated. They are organized in an unconventional manner for registry records. The records consist of thirty-eight index books (Grantor & Grantee) and 244 “record books". The record books are organized and labeled according to “town”. So if you were looking for a deed from John Trull to John Kittredge on a parcel of land in Tewksbury you look in the main index for the title reference but would find the deed in a “Tewksbury Record Book”. Each town’s books start with “one” and the series usually contains about twenty books. Lowell is the exception; it has eighty books. We estimate that these records consist of approximately 150,000 images. We will keep you informed on developments regarding scanning these historical records.

Lowell Sun Reports on Foreclosures

The Lowell Sun ran a front page above-the-fold story today on rising foreclosure rates in the greater Lowell area, a topic we have frequently visited on our blog (full disclosure: I was interviewed for the story and am quoted in it) . While showing that the numbers are up significantly as compared to last year (Lowell’s foreclosures are up by 18%, Tewksbury’s by 22%, Dracut’s by 25% and Westford’s by 69%), the story also explained the dilemma facing many homeowners. Taking advantage of historically low interest rates and greatly relaxed lending practices, many folks have acquired homes by financing almost the entire purchase price. Others, who bought homes when prices were lower, have exploited the increased value of their homes by repeatedly refinancing, each time drawing out more and more cash. The problem with both of these situations is that heavily-leveraged homeowners have no equity cushion – they owe an amount that is almost equal to the value of the home. If they get laid off or suffer a medical setback or some similar bad event, they might be able to sell the house and receive enough money in return to pay back the amount owed on the mortgage. But what happens when the value of the property goes down? Unfortunately, the amount owed is not reduced proportionately, so the homeowner finds himself owing more than the house is worth. If he’s forced to sell, he must come up with additional money to pay of the balance of the mortgage. Realistically, most people don’t have this kind of money in savings. If they did, they wouldn’t have borrowed so much in the first place. Anyway, congratulations to the Sun for writing about this important issue.

The Perfect Gift

“It’s the most wonderful time of the Year” or at least it is when your holiday shopping is done….I really don’t mind the gift giving…it’s the gift “picking” that I find tough…deciding on the right gift for the right person is difficult…my wife is easy…”expennnnnsive Jewelry” but everyone else is another story… I am hoping this year will be a little easier…I purchased a subscription to the techie magazine “Wired” and happily found this month's edition loaded with gift ideas…So I have made some decisions with help from Wired…

For Bill & Deb- a “Pocket Phone Excuser”…Just press the button and this device plays a doorbell ring, a baby crying, a police siren or a number of other sounds that make it easy to tell an annoying caller…“Gotta go”.

For Rich & Chris- These two love sitting by a camp fire toasting Marsh Mallows… guess what Wired has for them?…an electronic Marsh Mallow toaster…This three pronged toaster rotates Marsh Mallows rotisserie style …it’s faster than a twig(healthier too) and there is much less chance of Marsh Mallows being lost to the fire (according to the manufacturer).

For Warren & Linda- It's called “Water Talkies”… It allows you to speak clearly underwater. No more of those irritating gurgling sounds. Swimmers can hear you as clear as a bell from as far as fifteen feet away.

For Liz & Eric-a Darth Vader Voice Changer…It allows you to take command using your own words or... you can press a button and hear some of the bad guys most memorable lines...”Luke, I am you father...so... stop arguing with me”.

Lena & Frank- The “Drivers Anti-Doze Alert”… This device rests on your head and senses shifts in the angle of your head. Nod too much and the darn thing screeches at you…"wake-up!" Thank you Wired...this is perfect for these two.

Henry (the family dog)…It’s a ball… no it’s a Frisbee… wait its both. Just toss it into the air and it will randomly change from a Frisbee to a ball…poor Henry, he’ll never know what he is trying to catch…It doesn't matter... he thinks he's a cat anyway.

And what do I want?… A Bluetooth Snowboard Jacket… yes, “Bluetooth enabled” snow clothes (just what everyone needs)... This waterproof jacket toogles seamlessly between an MP3 player and a cellphone… the phone's speakers are mounted in the hood and the microphone is embedded in the collar. Mounted on the sleeve is a “control panel” that even has Caller ID. This same controller shuffles through songs on your iPod, also . Cleaning?…don’t worry…Just pull out the control panel and drop it in the washing machine...the remaining intregrated wiring is water proof...sure... after washing...I think I'll have Henry try it on first.

Hope this helps you...in your quest for the perfect gift for the right person...

Population of the Northern District

Yesterday, someone asked how many people lived in the Northern District of Middlesex County. I didn’t know, but I promised to find out. First, the Northern District is made up of ten communities with the city of Lowell in the geographic center of the district and the towns of Dracut, Tewksbury, Wilmington, Billerica, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Westford, Dunstable and Tyngsborough (named clockwise, starting at twelve o’clock). According to the 2004 census estimates (which are almost identical to the actual 2000 census results, 296,947 people live in the Northern District. Here are the 2004 population figures for each town along with the percentage of the Northern District’s population represented by that town’s residents:

-Billerica – 39351 inhabitants (13% of the district’s population)
-Carlisle – 4830 inhabitants (2%)
-Chelmsford – 33769 (11%)
-Dracut – 28681 (10%)
-Dunstable – 3101 (1%)
-Lowell – 103655 (35%)
-Tewksbury – 29130 (10%)
-Tyngsborough – 11387 (4%)
-Westford – 21475 (7%)
-Wilmington – 21568 (7%)

Besides these most recent figures, I have also located US Census statistics for 1990, 1980, 1970 and 1960. Next week I’ll write some more about how the population of these communities has changed during the past 45 years.

The Whole World's Watching

In case you have missed it…the Eyes of the World are on Massachusetts…Well, at least the Technology eyes. Massachusetts recently became the first state to adopt a plan for government agencies to begin storing documents in a non-proprietary format. Currently, most state computers run Microsoft software (proprietary) as does most of the world…Free "open-source" software is available online to anyone from Sun Microsystems…and it is compatible with all other office programs. This "open-source" software is called OpenDocument and offers applications such as text, spreadsheets, charts and graphical documents. Open-source is in direct competition with propriety software. If Massachusetts follows through on its plan to go open-source it means removing Microsoft Office software from tens of thousands of government computers. Governor Romney’s plan is to embrace an open-source format for state government computers in 2007. How big would this be?…well let me say this…Google News displays articles about this topic from news sources as far away as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Australia and …of course Redmond, Washington (home of Microsoft). To steal a phase from the 1960’s “the whole world’s watching”…but, it appears Microsoft is up for the battle…the computer giant has decided to seek approval for Office 12 software to be rated as an international standard. Office 12 is Microsoft’s next generation of office software due out next year. It will use a different format and be readable by other “outside” programs… in other words it will function like an open-source, non-proprietary software. Massachusetts’ decision will have a huge impact on the computer world…but for now “the whole world’s watching” …and waiting.