Comments | Eastern NC Now

Steve: I just had a long conversation with Washington City Council Candidate Gary Ceres about this issue of the county's responsibility to properly maintain a recorded history, in total perfection, of all documents of conveyance, and, of a lesser importance, all other recorded documents.

Between us, we came up with 5 good reasons why a hard copy document, with a hard copy index, in a fireproof space is essential to the continuance of maintaining stability when dire circumstances will present themselves.

Without hearing from the responsible bureaucrats, it is now my position that this situation is a complete aberration to the common sense of record keeping. Once I get that opinion from these best and brightest bureaucrats, I still cannot see my governing opinion to purposefully process the better path struck changing in a meaningful way.

Like you Steve, I have considerable experience with this issue of doing what is ultimately right, if not perfectly right when it comes to the real of record keeping. Its proper importance is absolute.

Commented: Wednesday, October 4th, 2023 @ 12:53 pm By: Stan Deatherage

Maintaining proper deed records, and that means hard copy records having primacy, is important to the citizens of Beaufort County. The best path to accomplish that is to try to get people working together and not descend into warring factions. Proper policy is what is important here, not personalities.

Stan, you are quite correct about the hard copy index, as well. When I was doing real property work as an attorney, I was always very leery of a computer index, and there is a very good reason for that. With a hard copy index book, it is easy to pick up a variation in a name that can reveal documents that may impact the title you are searching. A computer index is only going to spit back the name exactly as it is put in the computer. I first encountered a computerized index of more recent filings in Pitt County over 20 years ago, and was so uncomfortable in relying on it, I never did any further real property work in that county.

The space problem is real, something I could see coming years ago. There are ways to temporarily put bandaids on it, but none of them are going to work long term or even medium term and not even very acceptable short term. We need hard copy deed books and index books, and we need more space in the Register of Deeds office to accomodate them.

As a practical matter, when there are multiple people working on titles at one time, using the books allows everyone to work instead of waiting in line to use the computer terminals. For permanence, hard copy records are more secure. In the days of computer hacking, expecially on the cusp of AI making that potentially much easier and more far reaching, relying exclusively on computerized records is asking for trouble. Further, we could easily have major computer outages if the Earth experiences another massive solar eruption of the scale of the Carrington Event of 1859. We have come all too close to that several times since.

Our elected officials have a duty to Beaufort County citizens to maintain our courthouse records in a usable and permanent form, hardcopy plus digital or microfilm backup. We need all of our elected officials to work toward that goal.

Commented: Wednesday, October 4th, 2023 @ 12:19 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Prendiegirl: Space is not the issue; not recording hard copy documents, with hardcopy indexing is the monumental problem.

If this is a directive by state government bureaucrats, that can be corrected with the help of other smart people. It this is a Beaufort County mistake, then it will definitely be corrected.

Commented: Wednesday, October 4th, 2023 @ 10:08 am By: Stan Deatherage

As half of Canada was on fire. this summer.

Commented: Wednesday, October 4th, 2023 @ 9:49 am By: Big Bob

The space dis available in the Register of deeds office for up to ten more years of hard copies..

The Beaufort County commissioners set the budget for the filing of hard copies. There is no issue about who has the authority and who has the money to pay for it.

This is a renegade and woke register of deeds who knows more than anyone. Not recording deeds flys in the face of our history and the preservation of property rights. Because it has an R behind the name does not mean it understands the constitution and our heritage.

Commented: Wednesday, October 4th, 2023 @ 5:35 am By: Hood Richardson

Arrest their asses

Commented: Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023 @ 11:03 pm By: Chris

In America we are being invaded by illegal immigrants. Because the president of Mexico is the ring leader of the cartels and Biden and Mayorkas are on the payroll.

Commented: Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023 @ 10:49 pm By: Foxy Brown

How are rules and regulations set for the Register of Deeds office in North Carolina? Are there State Statutes that regulate the preservation of documents? With constant hacking and now AI coming on, how could anyone expect to completely trust that electronic documents could not be changed? It is good that public records may be retrieved without going to the Court House, but they should be backed up by hard copies that bear signatures.

Commented: Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023 @ 10:34 pm By: Buzz Cayton

There is a disproportent number of illegal aliens in American jails because they commit so many crimes. European crime stats show the same thing. There is a competition between Sweden and Germany as to which is the rape capital of Europe and it is the illegal alien "asylum seeker" migrants who are mostly committing the rapes. Other categories of crime are way up as well, and it is the migrants committing them for the most part. These criminals and potential criminals need to be sent home.

Many of those illegal aliens encountered at the US southern border have criminal gang tattoos, but the Biden regime is just letting them enter the country. This is a crime by our government against the Aemrican people.

Commented: Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023 @ 10:31 pm By: borderhawk

Close the borders. Immigrants are not being thoroughly vetted. Cartels must be prevented from coming in as well as the fentynal and other drugs. Immigrate through legal channels. Don't come illegally.

Commented: Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023 @ 10:10 pm By: nanunanu

The first step is an indictment. This would seem a pretty simple case to prove. The minutes would show the improper actions of the elected official, and the deeds and closing documents would show whose property it was that was being bought. The one that would be tricky to prove would be the mayor because he and his wife would likely plead the 5th as to what they knew. There would be too much documentary evidence for that to save the councilman.

The problem is getting a proper investigation because too many in high places look the other way when it is Democrats involved in hanky panky. Our state DOJ is just as politicized as Biden's DOJ, for example.

Commented: Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023 @ 7:54 pm By: Concerned Taxpayer