Well, someone has finally improved the way abstractors search titles.  Pam Hurst, Hamilton County Tennessee Register of Deeds announced the release of Quick Search, a software program which integrates sales data from the Hamilton County Assessor's Office with her office's remote access system.  

The purpose of the software is to accelerate the real property title search process to create a chain of title, Hurst said. She created the rules for Quick Search and programmer Bobby Deberry developed it.

"Chattanooga is a hotbed for innovation, and that includes innovation in county government," Hurst said. "Our office uses ideas and technology to help the legal community work faster and more efficiently. We can help Register's Office customers more easily."

Quick Search offers time-saving features, such as the ability to search chains of title and associated names simultaneously. It allows users to print every deed in the chain of title together in one print job.

Hurst said the original software has received praise since its May 16 release, when her office held a training session for 160 attorneys, surveyors, title examiners and government representatives.

I haven't used Quick Search, so I don't have any first hand data to share.  But, I am genuinely excited to see someone use technology to improve the process.  The advancement from books to the computer wasn't really an improvement in the process - it was just another example of the digital mimicking the analog.  Quick Search, on the other hand, seems to use the data together with records from the tax assessor to provide something new... something better.... that actually makes the job easier. 

Back in 2007 I wrote a blog about my vision for what technology could do for abstracting - GIMP (Graphic Index Map Plotting).  It was my vision of a perfect indexing system that would allow a completed search to be printed by simply selecting a parcel from a map.  

It would require several very skilled abstractors to create the database. Basically, conduct the examination as the records are entered, rather than after the fact.

Imagine an indexing system that was built on a graphical deed plotting system with the capabilities of software such as Deed Plotter. Each document would be examined by an abstractor to make sure that it conforms to all of its legal requirements, i.e. it is signed, witnessed, notarized, etc. Then, the legal description is plotted to give a graphical representation. The party names and dates would, of course, also have to be entered.

Those documents that do not require a legal description would be entered in the standard way they are handled now. They would be indexed by grantor/grantee and date.

Then when searching the database, rather than entering a name, parcel number, or address, you would simply pull up the map and select the parcel you wanted searched. The computer would check all of the parcels in that area and lay them out on the map. Any documents that have been plotted that overlap the selected parcel would be shown on the search. All of the documents that did not have a legal description would be automatically included using the names on those documents that did have a legal description and narrowed by the dates on the documents already found.

The point is that technology is more than just another medium to present the same old information. It can do more, and it should be made to do more. Kudos to Pam Hurst for taking advantage of it.  We should see more innovation.  And, it's great to see the innovation coming from a county official.