New Attorney General Decision has Affects on Chain of Title and Environmental Lien Searches in Texas

On February 25th, 2007, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott delivered an official opinion letter to county clerks across the state. In this letter, Abbott directly addressed the issue of private information (social security numbers, bank account numbers, drivers’ license numbers, etc.) in public documents. Abbott stated that any county providing these public documents with this private information, could subject the county clerk to fines, lawsuits, and even jail time.

In an age where technology has brought almost anything at a person’s fingertip via the web, this private information was also provided through the counties various websites. The letter that Abbott issued sent shock waves through many of the counties, causing many offices to even close their doors the general public until a feasible solution could be found. The result: real estate industry brought to a halt and independent abstractors unable to complete their work. For those clients of Banks who ordered any Title or Environmental Lien searches in March, your order was probably delayed due to this reason.

The original ruling would have required all counties to go through all documents and redact this information. However, the smaller counties across the state did not have the means to do this. Many county clerks’ offices were unsure how to proceed from this point. With the real estate market in a virtual standstill, and clerks unwilling to take chances, pressure was put on the state to ease up on such restrictions until counties and the state could make official policies regarding this issue.

Abbott, on February 28th, issued a letter abating the original decision for 60 days. Currently legislators are working a fix that would take the burden away from the various clerks.

On March 6, the Texas House of Representatives passed House Bill 2061 (HB 2061). The legislation was passed in direct response to Abbott’s opinion. This bill recognizes that clerks do not currently have the resources to look thorough the enormous amount of documents in their possession to redact every social security number. Numerous industries in the real estate sector rely upon daily access to records maintained by county clerks in order to conduct their business. House Bill 2061 states that a county clerk or district clerk is not liable for the disclosure of a social security number contained in a document filed with their respective office.

However, HB 2061 does provide consumers with a new weapon to battle identity theft. Upon the request of any citizen, the clerk must redact all but the last four digits of a social security number on any particular document in their office. HB 2061 also directs preparers of real estate documents to cease putting social security numbers in these documents.

This issue directly affected Banks’ Title Department and its Title clients. With Abbott’s quick decision to postpone this opinion for 60 days there was little down time for the various Abstractors, however, document retrieval has become a slower process. With HB 2061 now passed, we are hoping that our Title and Liens research time will get back to normal. Banks continues to monitor this situation and will continue to keep its client informed of developments.