Relating to county recorder fees and land record information systems management

The bill requires the Iowa county recorders association to issue a request for proposals in 2030, and every five years thereafter, to select a vendor to provide a statewide search website for the purpose of viewing county public land records. The bill requires each county to upload data and images of recorded documents to the statewide search website. The bill makes conforming changes throughout Code chapter 331, subchapter V, part 3, to remove or replace references to the county land record information system and its governing board. The bill strikes a provision requiring the county recorder to collect a fee of $1 for each transaction for which a fee is paid to be used exclusively for the purpose of preserving and maintaining public records. Currently, that fee is deposited in a county’s county recorder’s record management fund and used to produce and maintain public records that meet archival standards, and to enhance the technological storage, retrieval, and transmission capabilities related to archival quality records, in addition to other enumerated purposes. Additionally, the recorder may cooperate with other entities, boards, and agencies to establish methods of records management, and participate in other joint ventures that further the purposes of the fund. The bill strikes references to county recorder’s record management funds and directs moneys in those funds to be transferred to each respective county’s recorder’s technology advancement fund, as created pursuant to the bill. The bill increases the fee that a county recorder shall collect for each page or fraction of a page of an instrument filed or recorded in the recorder’s office from $5 to $10, with a maximum fee of $250 for a document with or more pages. Of the total fee collected, the bill requires $2 to be deposited in a county’s recorder’s technology advancement fund. The bill authorizes the recorder to collaborate with other entities, boards, and agencies to advance the use of technology for the delivery of services consistent with standards established for those services. The bill enumerates purposes for which moneys in a county’s recorder’s technology advancement fund shall be used. The bill requires a county bound by the chapter 28E agreement with the electronic services system to transfer from the total fee collected for the recording of a document in that county $3 to be deposited in the county’s recorder’s electronic services system fund, created pursuant to the bill, which moneys shall be transferred monthly to an account in a financial institution designated by the electronic services system and used for purposes described in the bill. A county recorder in a county not participating in the chapter 28E agreement with the electronic services system shall transfer from the total fee collected for the recording of a document in that county $1 to be deposited in the county’s county recorder electronic transaction fund, which each county treasurer shall establish pursuant to current law. The bill requires moneys in the county’s county recorder electronic transaction fund to be used for preserving and maintaining a statewide public record search. The bill eliminates the local government electronic transaction fund in the office of the treasurer of state under the control of the treasurer of state. Under current law, moneys in the local government electronic transaction fund are used for the payment of claims approved by the governing board of the county land record information system, including planning and implementing electronic recording and electronic transactions in each county, developing county and statewide internet sites to provide electronic access to records and information, and paying the ongoing costs of integrating and maintaining the statewide internet site. The bill appropriates moneys remaining in the local government electronic transaction fund on the effective date of the bill to the treasurer of state to be used by the treasurer of state to assist the governing board of the electronic services system in developing, operating, and maintaining a county land record information system. The bill amends provisions relating to the access of certain personally identifiable information, including by outlining procedures for shielding information, defining persons qualified to have their information shielded, and defining persons authorized to access such information and under what circumstances. The bill amends provisions of Code chapter 331, subchapter V, part 3, regarding the formatting of documents and surveys submitted for filing or recording and makes other conforming changes.