George: I have been using the on line access here in Northern Virginia for about 10 years now- it is by subscription, so I pay to access each county's site-since I moved to Tennessee a little while ago, the local county is also on line-although a much more abbreviated version from my base counties- (Va has at least 100 yrs available vs Tn only 27 yrs)- There have been arguments that posting this information on line is exposing the land records to those "we would rather not allow" - It is the county that dictates who gets in- they provide the security and they can deny anyone they wish- but like you say- they are "public records" and the public should be allowed to view- as long as they abide by the rules of the site-(ie: pay the fees and do not harm anyone or thing)
Here in NoVa we have not had any problems that I am aware of as far as security-it is a little easier now to access, before we had to have static IP's for the main county- but they dropped they requirement after about 5 years-which was a nice little bonus as far as the fees we were paying to the local cable company for that provision.
It is a bit daunting to know that anyone can access the sites and get copies- but that seems to be the way of the future- record rooms are shrinking in size- clerk's offices are like a ghost towns , hardly anyone in there anymore- and that is the way they want them ,too, cuts down on the work load the county has to deal with.
I remember when there were in excess of 150 examiners/abstractors in the record rooms, long lines waiting to use limited machines, for copies, looking up records, waiting for indexes- that is all in the past- and now it is the norm to have up to 3-5 people in the record room- big difference-and with on line access I can do the work from home and get it to the client in a matter of minutes-just the way they like it now .FAST-
All that means more productivity for me and the people I do titles for.
Just my experience with the land records here in Northern Virginia over the last 30+ years.
Steve Meinecke
IA/Titlefax
Franklin, Tn
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