I heard that this was happening in Wisconsin and NJ.  Another large company is trying to buy South Carolina databases and I am sure every state in the union is being approached just in this same manner.  This is the very first dialogue that I have seen on this matter to back up the rumors that this is in fact happening.  Thanks to Amy for responding.  Hope her job is secure. 

This is the exact reason the NC State Bar is trying to squash this all at the same time the State government is putting all the counties on line.  Some of the rural counties are bucking up and saying no, their indices will go on line but not their images.  I wish more of the counties would do the same.  I personally felt safer searching from the books where you could leaf through pages of indices and see the whole picture instead of putting in the last name, first initial and hope to heck that they are not going by their nickname.  One saving grace in NC, is that the deed of trusts/mortgages should be in the exact name as the deed.  Something that does not happen when banks use title companies.  Something that is corrected when the banks use attorneys because they are not supposed to record it without adding a/k/a or having it corrected to reflect the way they hold title.  True story, I was searching a William McNeil.  Found a subordination agreement but not a second mortgage.  Searched everywhich way I could and then went to the books (we had both back then) to find that it was indexed as WM. McNeil.  The period at the end of the WM kept it from coming up in the computer. No attorney search involved in that mortgage.  Another one recently, there is a code (F) that the clerks enter in the column before they type in the name column.  Found an assignment but no mortgage.  So I got the book and page off of the assignment.  Pulled up the mortgage and the names are correct.  Pulled up the daily recordings for that date and the last name had an F tacked on to it.  (Sheila Fhouser) So do these companies correct this type of error?  And again, if these companies are relying on an abstractor to search on the ground level and this abstractor is not concerned about the future of the company that they are servicing because they know they have no future there, where is the loyalty to correctly identify these errors or even to provide adequate service?  Now that's a scary thought.

The abstractors in my area that are independent or employed by attorneys hang their heads and say eventually we will all be working for the title companies.  In my county, the abstractors that find errors are disgusted with the computer system that was put in four years ago.  They make the correction for their boss's records but never tell the Registry so that the correction can be made on the permanent records.  The first year and a half that this computer system was up and running the clerks were not that well trained on entering the data and there are so many errors.  All this is just being transferred to the title plants.  No one will ever know the precautions that we all take during those years.

I am like Mark only, I found out that I still have to carry E & O insurance so I may as well stay where I am until I die or win the lottery then I can quit.