Ingeo Electronic Recording Case Studies
Salt Lake County, Utah

Summary of solution

Salt Lake County was Ingeo's "proof of concept" project, representing the company's first implementation of electronic recording in a business-to-government situation. One of the major goals of the pilot was to move forward with Utah Governor Mike Leavitt's mandate to provide all government services online, an effort that was intended to reduce government expense, increase public accessibility, and attract high-tech businesses and people to the state.

For the first phase of the project, Salt Lake County's recorder, Nancy Workman, spearheaded the effort. In this first phase, three documents were successfully recorded in a proof of concept test. Soon after, Workman was elected county mayor and the responsibility for continuing the project fell to her successor, Gary Ott. Ingeo and Salt Lake County worked closely with the recorder's data management systems provider, Alpha Numeric Systems (ANS) in both phases of the pilot.

During the initial pilot, three local title companies were involved. At the commencement of continuing day-to-day electronic submissions two additional title companies signed up. Current participants are: Merrill Title, First American Title, Superior Title, Stewart Title and Equity Title.

The Salt Lake County pilot focused exclusively on a single document type: the deed of reconveyance. This document was chosen because it is the single most common document type in the mortgage industry, and because it is fairly standardized in format, content, and length. The electronic reconveyance implemented in Salt Lake County is an XML-based digital "smart" document, including embedded digital signatures and digital notaries, which allows for fully automated recording without the need for rekeying information.

Preparation and integration

Preparation for the project began in the spring of 2000, and lasted for more than a year as the county performed needs analysis activities and refined its operational goals. Ingeo first spent time analyzing workflows at both county and title company offices, then built an e-recording system from the ground up. The result is a solution that would eventually become known as the Ingeo Electronic Recording System.

With ANS, Ingeo created a data-sharing conduit that allowed Ingeo's system to communicate directly with Salt Lake County's existing cashiering and indexing systems, passing data back and forth as documents progress through the recording process. The data sharing interface had to be re-tooled slightly for the second phase of the project, which involved a newer version of the Electronic Recording System. But ANS and Ingeo worked closely together to ensure a tightly integrated solution.

Key results

The first phase of the Salt Lake County project was completed on June 20, 2000, when the County Recorder's Office electronically accepted and recorded three deeds of reconveyance from three Salt Lake County title companies. This was the county's first recording event that was electronic from start to finish.

After the proof of concept, the county and Ingeo took the e-recording system offline for revisions and improvements. On August 6, 2001, the second phase began. From this date to the present, Salt Lake County's system has been accepting and recording electronic documents, processing them in the background with no human intervention, and making them available online as soon as they are recorded. Since this phase began, more than 1,000 documents have been electronically submitted from Salt Lake title companies and recorded by the county's recording servers.

Response from the title companies regarding day-to-day use of the Ingeo system has been very positive. According to Scott Matthys of Equity Title, he expected to see several benefits, including time savings, convenience, and the capacity to handle out-of-state document transactions electronically. Matthys indicates that he is "very satisfied" that all of these benefits have been realized.

Other title companies indicated that the timesavings allowed them to refocus personnel efforts on other tasks, and save money by doing so. "We wanted to get around having to print documents entirely," said Galen McMurtrey of First American Title. "Having an electronic orientation for our title company is important. Our national headquarter has acquired many businesses to accomplish this. We're trying to stay on the leading edge."

The biggest need in Salt Lake County is to have the capability to process additional types of documents, with much more room for differences between documents of a single type. Salt Lake County and Ingeo are working together to plan a third installation, which will provide the flexibility needed. This next phase is slated for the latter part of 2002.

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