The Lincoln County Commissioners are pondering future competition for a significant source of revenue in light of a private company’s request for electronic copies of the county’s land records.
Meeting Oct. 6, commissioners discussed how they should respond to the request from MacImage of Maine touching on topics such as a potential fee structure, a format for the copies and a time frame for compliance.
Under the state’s Freedom of Access law, MacImage has the right to obtain the information, and at a “reasonable fee.”
During its regular Tuesday session, the county board approved a letter responding to the request, which states, “We need some time to determine how we will be able to accommodate your request. In addition, we are currently reviewing our cost structure in order to establish an appropriate fee.”
In a letter presenting the company’s request, MacImage general manager John Simpson said the company has had a website with Hancock County’s land records on it for 10 years after a court settlement in the company’s favor. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court decided a per copy fee was unreasonable when applied to a bulk request for thousands of pages, according to Simpson.
However, Blodgett said the copying of Hancock County’s records applies only to Hancock County. “It’s not up to us to come up with a system to provide the information,” he said.
Blodgett said the county has never received requests before for bulk records and has no solid rationale for fees. “He (Simpson) has a commercial enterprise in which he intends to make a fortune,” he said.
According to Simpson’s letter, MacImage intends to acquire electronic records from all counties in the state in order to have them on its website, allowing people to come to one web location to view Maine land records.
“After obtaining copies of the request records, MacImage of Maine intends to provide access to these documents on our RegistryofDeeds.com website,” Simpson said. “There will be no fee to search for and view documents on our website.”
However, the company charges for printable copies, Simpson said. “It is our intention to share some of the fee revenue we collect with counties that agree to work with us in a cooperative fashion,” he said.
Currently, people who perform statewide property searches have to set up accounts with each county registry website as for Lincoln County’s site, each having its own fee structure.
“MacImage of Maine is willing to pay the county a reasonable fee for copying the records specified in our FOAA request,” Simpson said. “A ‘reasonable fee’ as defined by the Hancock County case could include the cost of staff time and materials such as DVD disks required to comply with our FOAA request.”
Simpson suggested as one possibility to offer the county its DeedsPro document recording software at no cost.
“In several counties, the amount paid to an outside vendor for a document recording system each year is approximately equal to the amount received in revenue from selling copies on the county’s registry website,” he said. “The net financial impact on the county could be positive if MacImage of Maine were to also share some revenue from its statewide website with the county.”
The county’s new registrar of deeds, Rebecca Wotton, who assumed the position after the recent retirement of Marcia Silva, said, in a letter to the company, the registry intends to respond to the request after completing its review of it with the county board.
