For those of us searching title in Ohio, a majority of the  88 counties use USlandrecords for the on line site. This system has been in place for a number of years. It used to be called "Landaccess''. I am not going to say it is the best system in the country as I have only had experience searching title in Ohio. However, of the many county recorder sites I have seen it is the most user friendly for the experienced professional and for "John Q. Public.''

However, a new gunslinger is invading, "Co-file''. It is being marketed to the elected officials to make their day easier and smoother. What a load of hooey. The system is not user friendly to the experienced professional. It is so confusing and convoluted there is no way "John Q. Public" can or will be able to use it to review PUBLIC RECORDS.

I will admit I have had limited exposure with personally, but a staff member of almost 20 years experience has showed me some of the issues she and other examiners who are forced to use it have already encountered. For example, when you print an index at the courthouse, there is no certified date of the records, only the date of the printing. There is no way of initializing your prints to separate your prints from somebody else also printing at the same time. The system automatically deducts the cost of the print. That is ok, except you cannot limit the records through a "filter duplicate" command. So you get husband and wife records as separate records, ie, twice the info and twice the print and twice the cost. The on line index you can print in some counties, but not all, does not list the legal description for the record indexed.  Once in the system at the courthouse, you cannot research names in a dated order. For example, I input John Smith from 01/01/2000 to 01/01/2001 and then I input Bill Jones from 01/01/2001 to 01/01/2002. It will not allow this type of searching. Once I obtain the records for John Smith, I have to back out of the system and re-enter the program to search the next set of names needed. This is counterproductive to any computer system.

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is the elected officials are being swindled at the public expense. The elected officials, County Recorders, have two basic functions. One, having a fiduciary duty to record  and maintain land records . Two, providing the public the ability to retrieve / review said records. If the retrieval system is so flawed it prevents the PUBLIC from viewing PUBLIC records the system is wrong for the PUBLIC.