Took me 6 days to sort out a title search that should have taken one phone call

I had a small plot of land out in rural Ohio, maybe 2 acres, that I was trying to sell for a client. The county recorder's office had changed their whole filing system back in 2018, and the old deed references didn't line up with the new digital index. After three trips to the courthouse and a full afternoon on hold with the title company, I finally found the original survey tucked in a folder marked "misc." The clerk on the phone finally said, "Oh, you have to search by the old parcel number, not the new one." That was the whole hangup. So now I always ask for the parcel history first. Has anyone else had a closing stall because a county system update wiped out easy access to old records?

2 comments

2 Comments

morganl7120h ago

County systems are the absolute worst for this, had a buddy spend two weeks chasing a sewer easement that turned out to be filed under the previous owner's dog's name. Now I just bring doughnuts to the records clerks and they fast-track everything for me.

martinez.paul9h ago

The doughnut trick works until the clerk retires and the new one is vegan. @morganl71 hit the nail on the head about county chaos, but around here they digitized everything in 2019, so the real nightmare is the search tool. It'll pull up "Fido's Trust" but make you filter through 400 versions of "John Doe" with no dates. Last month I found a lien filed under a misspelled old address, and the county said it was my job to prove the typo. Honestly, baked goods might be the most reliable database we've got.