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Online Leader Maricopa County, AZ - More Than Halfway to Goal of 60% E-Recording....From "The Real Estate Data Insight", May 6, 2003, pp 16 & 17
aricopa County, Arizona, the fourth-largest county in the U.S., has the second-fastest growth rate in the nation. The county records between 7,000 and 12,000 documents each day with a staff of approximately 40 people.

The recorder’s office in Maricopa County wanted to allow submitters to scan their own documents and submit them electronically to keep pace with the 10% to 15% increase in record ing volumes each year. However, state law prohibited digital recording until the late nineties.

In 1998, Arizona laws were changed to allow the digital submission of optically scanned originals, with the provision that only title insurers or their agents, state or federal banks, or government entities could submit electronic documents for recording. Barbara Frerichs, county recorder project manager, saw the change as an opportunity to improve recording efficiencies.

"On occasion, we visit other recorder’s offices of similar size to see how they do things,” she said. “In the late nineties, we visited Orange County, California, which had been doing digital recording for more than a year. They chose a third-party vendor, but we didn’t feel the title companies we work with on a regular basis wanted a third party involved, so we met with our own IT staff to find a way to accomplish digital recording without using a third party."		  

  Maricopa County’s recorder’s office, with the help of its IT staff, set up a virtual private network (VPN) to allow submitters to use any scanner and scanning software they choose to scan their own documents and submit them for recording.

“Each company sets up its own VPN - a secure connection which allows them access to our network from their Web browser. They scan their documents and drop them electronically into a directory outside of our firewall. Our system automatically scans the directory every second and places the documents past our firewall into our own production environment,” explained Frerichs.

Documents recorded electronically are returned almost instantly, improving the process for lenders and title companies. After superimposing an image of the recording seal and information onto the scanned document image, employees of the county recorder’s office place the combined image in the customer’s return folder. Then, the title company or lender, in a matter of minutes, can print the recorded document and mail or e-mail it to those waiting to receive it.
 


In 1992 the NACCO Achievement Award for Design and Implementation was awarded to the Recorder’s Automation Project.

In 1994 the NACCO Achievement Award for Re-Engineering was awarded to the Recorder’s

  

Micrographics Department providing the Recorder’s information and images on-line through public access.

Recorder's Office was inducted into the Year 2000 Computerworld Smithsonian Collection for Vote by Mail.

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