Title Insurance Abstracting Today – a Step Back in Time

A serious discussion needs to take place as to the future of the industry. But what about today? What do we do?

I was in a smaller population county in Nebraska yesterday (2-20-08). County seat, Wilber, population 287. I was in the Register of Deeds office. It was a welcome step back in time. There were no guards, or metal detection devices scanning me as I walked into the Courthouse. I was doing local research. I walked in, said I was a certifed abstractor and would like to look at some titles. The Assistant Co Recorder showed me into the record room. I asked if the books were grantor-ee or set up by Sec-Twp-Rge. They acknowledged the tract index books. I pulled the appropriate tract index, and within a few minutes had all of the documents that I was looking for on hundreds of acres and millions of dollars of property. The books are the traditional, individually typed index pages. Older pages were encased in plastic covers to protect them. Photocopies of original documents were well organized and maintained. They explained there was an off-site duplicate copy in case of disaster. Exactly what you would hope for from your local county recoder.

Then on to the Court Records. I looked up the Last Will and Testament and was able to determine 4 generations of owners with the same first and last names, but different middle initials. Great-grandfather, passed onto sons and grandsons, etc, all with variations of a name. Cleared up all those various different wives names in the chain of title. It was quite a trip.

This County has no real estate records online. This County has no real estate records even on computer. And abstracts, I was told, “hardly exist any more in this county. Title insurance has taken over. To do title work, the local abstract company has a part time employee who goes to various Courthouses to pull the documents.” The county employees were very knowledgeable and very helpful. They knew the family and a bit of the history. It was like going home, in a way. They even called ahead and told us the best place to eat lunch. The Wilber Hotel is a great place to eat.