It has been a very interesting week here in SC.  First, we were asked to search a property in Charleston Co.  It turned out that the current owner has declared himself his own sovereign entity so as not to pay taxes.  Never had that before.  What is more interesting is that in this same week, we were asked to search a property in Colleton Co where the current owner has declared himself a temple of the Holy Ghost so he is a church and should therefore be tax exempt.  The government doesn't seem to agree since he has over $400K in tax liens at this time.  Unbelievable coincidence to have two in the same week.

Then we searched a property in Beaufort Co for a foreclosure.  In our search, we found that one of the current owners was deceased.  Not unusual.  We go to get the estate file.  Seems husband isn't paying the mortgage either since he is incarcerated for her murder.  AND in an attempt to cover up the murder, he set fire to the residence which is the subject of the foreclosure. 

Lastly, I nearly got thrown out of the Colleton Co deed room for calling the RMC (we have separate Clerk of Court and head of Records, the RMC is the head of records) IGNORANT.  Yesterday, it came to the attention of myself and another independent abstractor that the thru date in Colleton Co had been changed.  On Thursday, the thru date was the 29th.  Yesterday it was the 28th.  We went to inquire.  We were advised that they do this regularly when they have to make a correction to the computer system.  I--calmly--explained that they couldn't DO THAT.  They advised they do it all the time.  I-slightly less calmly--told them that I wasn't indicating that it was PHYSICALLY impossible, but that they SHOULDN'T do that.  I tried as best I could to explain WHY an accurate thru date is essential.  Blank stares.  I then--explained--that if I have any claims on my E & O because of the IGNORANCE (yep, there it is) of the staff whose job it is to maintain the land records in this county, staff who have never even done a title search, staff who on a weekly basis have to ask us abstractors how something should be indexed, staff who still insist on indexing churches under the surname of Church (visions of Julia Sugarbaker in my head), and staff who can't even answer simple questions by the public, then I will most certainly be asking the county council to pay my claim, since they are the ones who allow this IGNORANCE (yep, again) to continue.  AND, (no stopping me now), I advised her royal hinyness that I would spend all day Monday calling all of the attorneys in town to make sure they were aware that their thru dates weren't necessarily valid. 

This "interaction" occurred AFTER an entire week wherein judgment records have not been available due to reorganization and being advised that only the index will be available Monday--not the actual files.  If we find a judgment on a property, then we will have to wait until that box is unpacked.  I asked--remember this is BEFORE the finale--what might all those prisoners be doing across the street, seemed to me they had spent considerable time working out in order to bulk up for just such a job as moving and unpacking boxes.

Then, I went to pull a Record Book and it was missing.  None of the other abstractors had it so I went to ask the clerks if they had it.  I was told--hold your head or your brains will explode--they had loaned it to the Assessor's office.  They ACTUALLY allowed an official book of land records to LEAVE THE BUILDING and go to another county agency.  I asked them if the copy machine was broken???  But, I let it go--then Cheryl discovered the thru date was different and I was off.