Doing The Deed: CT’s Real Property Electronic Recording Act
by Ryan McKeen
One of the jobs of an attorney after a real estate closing is to record the transaction on the land records.
This involves an attorney driving to the town hall where the property is located and physically recording the documents.
Of all the legislation that will take effect on October 1, 2009. The Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act excites me the most.
Here’s the summary of the bill from the General Assembly website:
This act, with respect to documents eligible to be recorded in municipal land records, authorizes town clerks to:
1. receive, index, store, archive, and transmit electronic documents;
2. provide electronic access to, and search and retrieval of, documents and information;
3. convert paper documents accepted for recording into electronic form;
4. convert into electronic form information recorded before they began to record electronic documents;
5. accept electronically any fee or tax that they are authorized to collect; and
6. agree with federal and other state and local officials on (a) procedures or processes to facilitate the electronic satisfaction of prior conditions on recording and prior approvals by other officials, and (b) the electronic payment of fees and taxes.
This act enables town clerks to receive electronic documents. Given that recordings are done by town clerks I expect that various towns will adopt electronic recordings at different times.
I know Glastonbury is eager and prepared to adopt electronic recording.
This means that instead of driving to a town clerk’s office attorneys will soon be able to record from their desks.
I love the measure. It’s efficient and environmentally friendly. I probably put 12,000 miles a year on my car recording deeds.
