Last night at the Windsor Town Hall meeting we heard an informative title attorney discuss the deplorable state of recorders offices in our OH and PA. This was relevant because as he stated, "running titles before drilling is typical and with all the acreage leased, there are not enough abstracters to do that work".
The article below was published this morning and this development is a step taken to answer the issue stated above. This is good and bad. For good; those who are interested in actually getting any checks for their leases, are in a better position. For bad; things are moving forward faster.
As always, I want to help provide factual, informative information to all who are stakeholders in this.
Robin L Brower
AquaData Water Testing
Trumbull Township BZA
Electronic land info eases deal process
Harrison County Recorder Tracy Boyer never expected a private company one day would foot the bill to digitize all the land records in her office.
That, however, was before representatives of oil and gas companies started to overrun her office.
One of those companies, Chesapeake Energy Corp., has agreed to digitize land records in at least five eastern Ohio counties, Harrison included, and has made a similar offer to Mahoning County, according to various county recorders. Their estimates as to how much the Oklahoma City-based oil and gas company would pay range from $100,000 to $300,000 per county.
So, why would a private company spend money on projects that normally would be paid for by the public?
Because Chesapeake wants easy, fast access to the records. The company has spent $2.3 billion to secure rights to natural gas and other valuable hydrocarbons trapped beneath the Utica shale, a rock formation located deep below most of eastern Ohio. Almost all of that money was spent on leases in Ohio.
Before Chesapeake can do deals, however, the company must study county land records. Thus, employees from Chesapeake and its competitors have been packing recorders' offices throughout eastern Ohio, combing through thousands of documents. Many documents are available only in paper form, and some are more than 100 years old.
Demand for records in Harrison County has skyrocketed over the past two years or so, Ms. Boyer said. It isn't uncommon for 45 or 50 people to be checking records in the office each day, she said.
Ms. Boyer said the availability of digital records will help get them out the door faster and lessen the burden on her staff, which consists of herself, two full-time employees and four part-time employees brought on to handle all the new business. Part-time employees could be laid off as demand falls, she noted.
The deal with Chesapeake also will help the county preserve its paper records, which have taken a beating lately.
“They're falling apart,” she said. “Now these records are fully secure. We could never afford to do that.”
Not on the "net yet
Harrison County expects that, by early fall, people should be able to access digital records from the recorder's office but not via the Internet. The county aims to put its documents online eventually, but it first will need to remove Social Security numbers and find money to cover fees its vendor would charge to host the images online, Ms. Boyer said. Other county recorders made similar comments.
“That will be a big process,” Ms. Boyer said.
That vendor, ACS Corp. of Dallas, negotiated a deal whereby Chesapeake paid the company to digitize land records in four counties: Harrison, Tuscarawas, Belmont and Carroll.
Chesapeake media relations manager Pete Kenworthy confirmed the company also is paying to digitize land records for Columbiana County, which is located just south of Mahoning County. The digital records will “help alleviate some of the current crowding problems at the courthouse as the review of records could be done remotely,” said Mr. Kenworthy, who described the cost incurred as “significant.”
Mr. Kenworthy said Chesapeake is considering similar deals “in other Ohio counties where we are, or plan to be, active,” but would not comment further. Xerox Corp., which owns ACS, would not comment for this story.
Chesapeake last December offered to pay ACS to digitize Mahoning County's land records, said Mahoning County Recorder Noralynn Palermo. The county's land records that predate 1985 are available only in paper form, she said.
Ms. Palermo said she passed the digitizing contract along to the county prosecutor's office, which has yet to give her legal approval to go ahead with the contract. If she wins that approval, Ms. Palermo said, she's inclined to let Chesapeake and ACS digitize the records.
Long-term benefit
It's unclear whether any other oil and gas companies have offered other counties similar deals.
However, a group of land owners is paying $254,000 to digitize land records in Trumbull County. The Associated Landowners of the Ohio Valley chose to digitize the records because its members own a lot of land in the county, said Bob Rea, director of the group. The organization is planning to lease 85,000 acres in Trumbull County to oil giant BP p.l.c. of London, which has agreed to pay members $3,900 per acre, or $331.5 million in total, plus royalties.
Digitizing the records will allow the group to speed up the process of transferring titles and getting their money, Mr. Rea said. And there will be side benefits for anyone who wants to access the records in the future, he said.
“The people of Trumbull County are going to be benefiting for a long time,” he said.
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