Public Records

[soapdish]

I've seen some questions here about how public records are updated, because this is not a service most courthouse officials provide

I've worked in the courthouse and for title insurance companies

The way the CRA used to get their information is to send a little old lady or some other highly qualified individual around to the courthouses, where they would drag down the heavy books, and copy new entries onto their worksheets. They would visit the clerks of court and register of deeds, probate etc, in several counties.

Now, of course much more electronic information is available. Sometimes the little old lady is still going down to the courthouse, only now she's maybe looking at printed computer indexes.

Companies can also purchase electronic records now, that's what a lot of title companies do now, and I imagine the CRAs do also. They purchase images of the records and/or indexes.

Title companies also send staff to the courthouse to get the most recent records in the registers of deeds (state & federal tax liens), clerks of court, and treasurers and probate office

That's where the information on your title insurance for your mortgage comes from, if you've ever had something pop up before a closing that you didn't know was out there, chances are the title company dug it up.

Hope this is helpful to some, probably not applicable to all states, but pretty general all around.

Peace, Lynn

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info.  Very informative and it gives us a little clue as to how the CRAs get this information.  Take care.

[Anonymous]

I can add some information here as I used to work for a company and managed the "Little Old Ladies".   My information is from 1995 when I changed jobs and I assume many courts have gone electronic but I would also be sure many have not.

Bankruptcy petitions were copied by the court staff and put on a public counter or table the next day for anyone to view...newspapers looking for companies that filed and people collecting for CRAs.  Courts also had computerized indexes and PACER(Public Access to Court  Electronic Records) that companies could dial into and download or copy information.  Very easy to collect and verify.

Tax Liens were on Micrco Film or Books and reecorded chronologically so all you had to know was the date of the last visit.  It was very easy to gather ALL liens/releases.  More importantly, it is also very easy to VERIFY a lien or release.

Judgments were difficult depending on the court staff and how busy the court was.  Most, but not all, courts restricted access so the collector had to request files, usually by case number and were limited to x files a day or x files pulled at a time.  The problem was that you could look at hundreds of files and find only a few actual judgments.  Looking for satisfactions was the same process but the return was much lower.  AND, the collector had to keep going back over the same files looking for judgements  and then the satisfactions.  That is the main reason satisfactions will not appear without a fight or verification...they are just two few and far between to make it worth while for the collector to mess with...a lot of time spent with little return.   

[soapdish]

thanks for the additional info - that's exactly how it was it our county, too.  Our Clerk of Courts did index judgments in a card file, so we could search by name and then pull the file.  All the hours I spent in a courthouse basement photocopying records, sheesh!

I wasn't TOO far off about the Little Old Ladies, was I? 

HAGD, L