Joyce Jensen, president of the Iowa County Recorders Association, and chair of the committee that oversees the Iowa Land Records system, explained that this one system provides total integration with all 99 of Iowa's counties. "As anyone in the real estate industry knows, county recording systems and practices may vary significantly. Developing the Iowa Land Records Portal and electronic submission service enabled significant progress in the adoption of standards that allow all the counties to work together," she said. "Now, every county in Iowa will be able to receive, validate and record electronic real estate documents without ever touching a piece of paper. Iowa County Recorders own the software and equipment used to operate the system, and that made it possible for all the recorders and their local service providers to make this happen."
Now all of Iowa's counties can electronically receive lien releases and assignments from national, regional and local submitters. With Ingeo's Electronic Document Recording System, Iowa's County Recorders have access to a majority of the national submitters including six of the top 10 and most of the top 30 lending institutions in the U.S. This is in addition to regional submitters in counties where Ingeo has already enabled electronic recording. "We're looking forward to phase two of the project," Klessig said. "This will expand the capabilities to allow counties to receive mortgage closing documents electronically."
The portal integrates with the local county land records management systems to enable the recording of documents submitted electronically. Phil Dunshee, Project Manager and Administrator for the Iowa Land Records system, and Jared Baker, Project Manager for ABC Virtual Communications, which hosts and operates the portal, agree that the statewide portal model makes sense for the future of electronic recording. "With a statewide portal, submitters have a single entry point to electronically submit documents in every county within the state," said Dunshee. The Iowa Land Records system provides the bridge between county systems and document submitters including Ingeo and their customers. The Iowa Land Records system and the integration tools used to connect with Ingeo are based on standards being developed by the Property Records Industry Association (PRIA) and the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO).
Ingeo's Electronic Document Recording System is composed of two parts: Ingeo ePrepareR for submitters and Ingeo eRecordR for county recorders. With Ingeo ePrepare, digital documents are prepared using standardized XML data, embedding digital and digitized signatures and notaries, and attaching electronic payment advices. Documents that originate on paper, such as loan closing documents, are scanned into ePrepare and placed into their proper recording order. ePrepare integrates with leading loan servicing, title, escrow, document management and recording applications.
eRecord receives the documents and, after an examination and validation review, processes each document according to established business rules in each recording office. Endorsement and receipt information is electronically embedded into the document, along with the recorder's digital signature, and is returned to the submitter electronically as an officially recorded document. Using configurable business rules, eRecord adapts to different recording requirements, fee structures and state legislation required within various recording jurisdictions. Ingeo is the only provider to offer a service with complete end-to-end capability that can adapt to virtually any submitter's system output and provide fully automated signing, notarization, delivery, recording, payment and return in conjunction with existing county recording systems.
