Burlington County to use new document handling process for records

Burlington County Clerk Tim Tyler announced that his office will be the first in the state to implement a new document handling process that will “drastically reduce turnaround” in recording and verifying the critical information on deeds, mortgages and other documents submitted for recording.

“Those who typically bring documents to the clerk’s office for recording will definitely notice and appreciate the accelerated recording,” Tyler said. “The timing for this couldn’t be more critical. The real estate market is clearly on the upswing, and I anticipate we will be recording 40,000 more documents that the 78,000 we handled in 2012.”

“Revenues from recording — a large portion of which will go toward the county budget and help reduce taxes — will also increase significantly by year’s end,” Tyler said. “We anticipate total revenues of more than $6.5 million, or about $1.5 million more than last year.”

The new system, called “double key verification,” employs an electronic verification process, which checks documents for such key information as names, land identification, document type and page count. Currently, the clerk’s office relies on in-person sight verification.

“To put it another way,” Tyler said, “The amount of time that is required for recordings will be significantly reduced by allowing technology to verify documents.

“We will have the flexibility to shift employee job duties from verification to recording documents as needed,” Tyler said. “This ability to change employee workloads will be extremely effective especially now in response to the current increases in recordings.”

A contract was awarded by freeholders to AMCAD of Herndon, VA to implement the new system, at a cost of 70 cents per document. This cost is offset by statutory user fees that the clerk’s office receives from its recording services.