Posted: 11/27/07
Internet access to many county documents scheduled for Jan. 1
By Charlie Warner
Argus News Editor
Area residents wishing to access various data provided by Houston County via the Internet will have to pay for it beginning January 1, 2008. The county board recently approved three different fee proposals, which will impact appraisers, realtors, lenders, and developers.
As more professionals are utilizing the Internet to conduct appraisals, charting real estate transactions, and mapping land parcels, the county has attempted to keep up with the new technology by purchasing new software.
Assessorís office
County Assessor Tom Dybing requested a $100 fee be created on an annual basis for appraisers, realtors, developers, etc., who wish to access the comparable sales results tab on the parcel website.
"The records in our office are open to the public, at no charge, and our website is also available to the public," Dybing explained. "But for persons wishing to access more specific information, such as comparable worth searches, we need to set up a yearly fee, which would be like a subscription to this service."
Dybing said his office receives between 15 to 20 requests each day for information on property transactions, breakdown of soils, and estimated market values.
"Fridays and days right before a long weekend is when we are really busy," Dybing noted. "There are a lot of persons doing appraisal work who spend weekends and evenings putting reports together. By offering them a service where they can access this specific information 24-7, where they wonít have to leave their offices and come to the court house, it makes it a lot more convenient for them."
Dybing said they hope to have the new subscription program in the assessors office up and running by the first of the year.
Recorderís office
The county board approved two fees requested by County Recorder Beverly Bauer. The county recently installed a new Landshark software system, which will make public records in the recorderís office Internet accessible.
The county started putting all of the recorder department documents in computer form in 1996. All transactions conducted before 1996 were in paper form and microfilmed. Bauerís department has been converting these older records to digital computer form, about 10 years of documents every year.
In August the Landshark software was put into service and various county departments were able to access the information via the Internet.
"The new system has been a big benefit for our various departments," Bauer said. "Instead of someone from the highway department having to drive to the court house to look something up on one of our two terminals, they can now access that information from their computer in their office."
Bauer said the new system will be utilized by abstractors, appraisers, attorneys, realtors, bankers, and other persons doing title searches.
Persons and businesses wishing to subscribe to the new system will be charged a $50 setup fee. Multiple users are allowed per location with the $50 fee.
The second fee is a monthly user charge, that will be determined by the amount of use. A monthly fee will be paid into an escrow account at the courthouse set up the following way:
ďA $50 charge will allow up to 250 page views per month;
ďA $100 charge will allow between 251 and 500 page views per month;
ďA $200 charge will allow between 501 and 1,000 page views per month.
Each subscriber will be able to see how many pages they have accessed each month. If they have a busy month, and are about to go over their allotted number of page views, they will be reminded, and will have to deposit additional funds into their escrow account.
"Weíre going to have a system in place so people know if they are about to go over their limit far enough in advance so they can come down and add to their account," Bauer said. "We want to be as accommodating as possible," she told the county board. "We donít want to have someone planning on doing a lot of work over a long weekend, running out of page views on a Friday night and not being able to complete the reports he or she wanted to get done. The system will give them plenty of warning."
Bauer stressed the county will continue offering free access to county records, as required by state law, on the two computer terminals in the court house. These fees would be for Internet subscribers only.
GIS department
The county board also approved a fee of 10 cents for a digital copy of a parcel data set provided by the GIS department. The cost of an entire set of digital images of properties in the county would be approximately $15.50.
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