ASHLAND — Any documents filed in the Ashland County Recorder’s office after March 1 will be subject to a $5 fee, said newly elected recorder Erin Beebe.
The so-called preservation surcharge will help the office — located in the Ashland County Courthouse building — cover costs associated with digitizing documents dating back to 1846.
Ashland County is now the 48th in Ohio with this fee, which by law cannot exceed $5.
The Ashland County Recorder’s Office currently charges a base rate of $34 for the first one or two pages of the document. Each additional page is $8.
So, as of March 1 there will be a base rate of $39 for the first one or two pages of the document and each additional page is $8.
A state law enacted in October allows counties to implement this fee. The bill set aside $6 million as a reimbursement for the cost associated with digitizing records.
“But it’s a first-come, first served basis,” Beebe said. “So we wanted to make sure we got started in order to get that reimbursement.”
The law states the revenue generated from a preservation surcharge should be used to support a “website with appropriate security features, electronic document hosting, online viewing and print and download features.”
What does a recorder’s office do?
A recorder’s office, sometimes called a register of deeds, maintains, manages and stores official records of land ownership, property transactions and other real-estate related documents within a county or jurisdiction.
Beebe said she anticipates the surcharge to generate about $31,000 yearly. That money then funnels into the county’s general fund. In other words, Beebe said, the money stays local, unlike the base fee.
“Half of that $34 fee goes to the Ohio Housing Trust Fund,” she said.
The fund is a source for affordable housing grants and other related services.
Beebe hopes the preservation surcharge revenue goes toward the purchase of a scanner so that digitization can happen in-house.
How much of the recorder’s office is digitized?
So far, everything you can file in the recorder’s office, in addition to all deed books and indexes, lease indexes and plat books from May 1995 to present are available for viewing online or in the office. Each record is also maintained on a server and in cloud storage.
The effort, Beebe said, has cost $219,120.64 in recent years.
Some of that, $79,984.82 to be exact, was covered using American Rescue Plan Act money.
But the digitizing is not done.
A team from Michigan-based U.S. Imaging will come to the office in April to begin scanning additional documents. This upcoming chunk of the project is estimated to cost $127,334.93, but the entire expense is expected to be reimbursed by the state.
This time, they are dating back to Jan. 1, 1980. There are 212 books and 202,684 pages to scan and upload to the county’s server and cloud.