Lowell Deeds

The June sales and foreclosure reports and the 2008 reports to date (January 1 thru June 30) are now available online.

This is our annual 4th of July quiz given every 3rd of July…see how well you do

1. Who made the first American Flag?
2. What is the official date of Flag Day?
3. Who wrote the words to the Star Spangled Banner? Extra Credit: What was the name of the fort he was in when he wrote it?
4. How many stars were on the first flag? Now many stripes?
5. Who is the author of the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident”? Extra Credit: In what document?
6. How many member are there in the US House of Representatives?
7. How many US presidents were Generals?
8. What was Paul Revere’s occupation?
9. Who shot Abraham Lincoln?
10. Who was the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence?

See below for answers…

1) Betsy Ross 2) June 14 3) Francis Scot Key Extra Credit: Fort McHenry 4) 13/13 5) Thomas Jefferson Extra Credit: Declaration of Independence 6) 435 7) Seven-Washington, Jackson, Taylor, Grant, Hayes, Harrison, Eisenhower 8.) Blacksmith 9) John Wilkes Booth 10) John Hancock

The July issue of the Merrimack Valley Housing Report (now available) features an article about the physical and financial damage caused to innocent homeowners who have the misfortune to live near foreclosed properties. Another article asks why if our population growth is stagnant or decreasing, the amount of land in the Commonwealth that is developed has increased by more than 40% in the last twenty years. The Merrimack Valley Housing Report is a joint venture between Umass Lowell and the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds. The report is issued monthly in electronic format. To begin receiving your free subscription, visit our website and follow the instructions on activating a new subscription.

WANTED: Be on the look out…In a daring attempt at freedom a monkey and peacock escaped from the Southwick Zoo last week. Authorities attribute human error (as opposed to animal intelligence) as the cause of the rare break-out. Officials describe the monkey as a 2-year-old grivet, one foot tall and silver in color. After an intensive monkey-hunt the mammal was
apprehended Saturday, one week after the notorious escape. Meanwhile his accomplice, the peacock remains at large. The peacock (which does not answer when called) is of average peacock height and slightly overweigh, for a bird. The bird is Indian Blue in color, partially bald and scraggly looking. Zoo officials caution… if you see the fowl do not try to capture it. The bird is known to be constantly on the move so it is unlikely that notifying authorities will result in apprehension. Officials recommend “shooing” the peacock in the direction of the Zoo as the best course of action.

2008 is half over, so I compared our recording activity during the past six months with the first six months of 2007. For the entire ten town district, here’s what I found:

Deeds in 2007 - 3346; in 2008 - 2630, a 21% decline
Mortgages in 2007 - 8619; in 2008 - 6500, a 25% decline
Foreclosures in 2007 - 186; in 2008 - 328, a 76% increase

Here are the same statistics just for Lowell:

Deeds in 2007 - 1095; in 2008 - 825, a 25% decline
Mortgages in 2007 - 2443; in 2008 - 1465, a 40% decline
Foreclosures in 2007 - 112; in 2008 - 203, a 81% increase

While the decline in the number of deeds recorded in Lowell is consistant with the rest of the district, the drop in new mortgages is much more pronounced. This could indicate that people living in the city are finding it more difficult to refinance or to obtain financing in the first place.

Over the weekend ACS and employees from the Secretary of State’s IT Department upgraded to our main computer server. The old server will turn six years old tomorrow (talk about time flying). This is actually very old for a sever as important as this one. The new sever has a much larger memory capacity and will meet our needs for a number for years. The data migration from the old server to the new started on Thursday afternoon and didn’t finish until Saturday afternoon. Yesterday, Register Howe and I meet the team of techies to test. Of course, our main focus was document recording, e-recording and public viewing and printing. Fortunately, things wented as we expected. This morning the two of us arrived early and again met the experts and continued testing. The main problem discovered dealt with the re-scan project scanners. An ACS employee easily fixed this. Currently, there are still a few departments having trouble printing internally…but we expected this. I believe this too will be corrected by noon today.

With just another hour to go today plus all day Monday, I thought we could take a glance at recording statistics for this month and compare them to the stats for June 2007. Remember, the official end of June 2008 numbers will be slightly higher than what is shown here. Still, this gives you an idea of current trends in the region. In June 2007, we recorded 671 deeds for the district including 183 from Lowell. This June (thus far), it’s been 463 and 146. In June 2007, there were 1504 mortgages for the district including 357 from Lowell. This June, it’s 941 and 260. In June 2007, there were 46 foreclosure deeds for the district including 32 from Lowell. This June, it’s 52 and 34. This last number has some significance since in May there were more than 50 foreclosures in Lowell, a record high for a single month. It’s good to see that number is back into the 30s which, although still high, is an easier number to absorb.

The Real Estate Bar Association of Massachusetts (REBA) is confident that substantive amendments to existing homestead law will be enacted by the end of this legislative session. There are two major objectives of the proposed amendments. The first would clear up many of the ambiguities that currently plague homestead law such as the unintended termination of a homestead by an inter-family deed or by a refinanced mortgage, the automatic termination of an existing homestead by the filing of a subsequent declaration, the treatment of homesteads among multiple owners of property, both married and unmarried, and whether property in a trust can be the subject of a homestead. The second major change would make a certain amount of protection - $125,000 - automatic for every home owner although home owners could obtain the existing level of protection - $500,000 - by affirmatively filing a declaration at the registry of deeds. The law, if enacted, would operate retroactively, so if you already have a homestead you would not have to record a new one. These changes to homestead law are desperately needed. There is too much ambiguity and misinformation about this important consumer protection. Hopefully the legislature sees fit to enact it soon.

Friday is a BIG day for Microsoft Chairman, Bill Gates. It is the last day on the job for the world’s second richest man. But hey, it is not going to be all fun and games for the high profiled executive. He plans on keeping the nose to the grindstone one day a week at his mega-company (poor baby). Gates intends to work exclusively on special projects. I may be over-stepping my bounds here…but, I think when Bill does work he should concentrate on these following special projects:
GoogleCide…This special project is designed to win the battle between Microsoft and its archrival Google. Gates and company have been trying to kill off the Internet giant for years.
YahooIn…Yahooin was conceived by Bill’s right hand man Steve Ballmer. This special project seeks to find just that “special number” that will bring the Internet portal Yahoo “in” to the Microsoft family.
FortuneOne- Seriously, this is an embarrassment….Bill really needs to concentrate on FortuneOne. The goal of this special project is to make Gates the richest man in the world, “again”.
FedEx- No, this is not the acquisition of a package delivery company. Bill and Steve (Ballmer) developed this special project to get the rid of the Federal Government’s anti-trust lawsuits once and for all.
And finally, MelindaMore- Yeah Bill, this one is probably the most important of all…it is time to spend more time with your wife Melinda and the family.
Happy retirement…

Earlier today I spent some time with other Massachusetts registers and representatives of ACS, Browntech, Ingeo, LandData and Simplifile discussing electronic recording in the Commonwealth. The good news is that two registries besides Middlesex North have commended e-recording. Register John Buckley of Plymouth County reported that they have already recorded more than 800 documents and have found the system to work “very well.” Because Plymouth has long operated two satellite recording offices, their users were already comfortable doing rundowns that involved documents they never saw, so they were mentally ready to accept e-recording. The folks from the Hamden County Registry of Deeds (in Springfield) had a similar report. They’ve only done about 50 documents but described the process as “flawless” and have rejected only four documents, all because they were registered land. Overall, the folks in attendance seemed optimisitc that the widespread rollout of electronic recording might very well become a reality in Massachusetts during 2008.

What a difference the new bookcases the Middlesex South Registry gave us are making. When I first learned we were getting them I was a “little” excited. At the time my attitude was, if nothing else we’ll be updating some of our storage furniture. But, I must admit I cannot believe the difference…because the units are thinner they hold more books in less space… and they are much, much stronger. Last week I watched with embarrassment as the workers removed the old shelves. Some were so dilapidated I had secure them to a wall using rope. Even the installers got a kick out of seeing one shelf which I had secured with a bungee cord to an old heating/cooling duct. I am guessing that using these new cases we’ll shrink the book storage area by 50% using these units. What a pleasant surprise.

When we ceased creating paper record books back in November 2001, that decision was made easier by the knowledge that we routinely photograph all recorded documents for output to microfilm that is stored in a secure, offsite location. So as reliable as computers have become and with all the backup mechanisms in place, our last line of defence is and will remain microfilm, a remarkably stable and proven storage medium. We’re about to change our process for creating microfilm, however. Back in 1999, we purchased what was at the time a very sophisticated camera that contained a fully automatic, duplex page feeder. Because we were still printing our own record books, we simply stuck an unbound book in the camera’s feedtray and pushed a button. The rest was automatic. Since this machine was a signficant investment, we continued using it even after we stopped printing record books. Unfortunately, we still had to print paper copies of our recorded documents so that we could make the microfilm This was and is a significant waste of paper since those paper prints cease to be of any use as soon as they’ve been fed into the microfilmer. Now that the microfilmer is nearing its tenth anniversary (a long time for any piece of electronic equipment) and because the annual maintenance cost has continuously risen, we have decided to invest in a new machine, one that creates microfilm directly from the scanne dimages. That machine should be delivered soon and will be in operation in early July. We will still make microfilm of every document, but we’ll conserve quite a bit of paper through the use of this new device.

Execution is an ominous word, certainly when it refers to the taking of a life, but also when it deals with the taking of property. Today’s tough economic times have brought a significant increase in the number of executions being recorded by the Sherriff’s Department. For the period of January 1, 2007 to May 31, 2007, there were 243 executions recorded here at Middlesex North (with 75 of them for property in Lowell). For the same five months of 2008, the overall number rose to 317, an increase of 30% (with 101 of them for Lowell properties). Here’s a town-by-town breakdown of the 2008 recordings:

Billerica - 43
Carlisle - 1
Chelmsford - 32
Dracut - 49
Dunstable - 5
Lowell - 101
Tewksbury - 32
Tyngsborough - 13
Westford - 11
Wilmington - 22

As you know our former lower level record hall has been converted for exclusive registry use. This new space has opened up a number of opportunities for us. Currently, we are using the area as a mass production scanning center (a project which is working out great). The scanning project only takes about half of the available space. Record book shelves line the majority of the perimeter of the walls. There is a second lower level area (we call it the tunnel ). It also contains record books, on shelves…these shelves are in deplorable condition. In the days of yore when books reigned at the registry, space was a valuable commodity. The only way we could fit the increasing number of books we created was by moving into “the tunnel”. During this time we shelved books on anything we could get our hands on. The advent of the modern age brought the extinction of record books… but these shelves were never replaced. Through the generosity of the Middlesex South Registry of Deeds and Register Brune this is about to change. Currently, South is in the middle of a major renovation project. A new recording counter is being constructed in the area that was once Cambridge’s upper record hall. And Middlesex South intends to remove some of their record books from their shelves also…Get the picture? Shelves-plus books removed- equals- “Shelves not being used!”… Yes, a perfect scenario for registry cooperation. You guessed it…Register Brune has generously offered us these unused book shelves. Of course, we leaped at the chance to finally replace the “deplorable” shelves in the tunnel with the new. We expect the first group of these to arrive tomorrow and setup to begin immediately…Once again thanks to the Middlesex South Registry of Deeds

The Bristol North Registry of Deeds in Taunton recently switched to the ACS 20/20 computer system that has been operating in this office since July 1, 2002 (Lowell was the first registry in the Commonwealth to operate the ACS system). Of the 21 registries in Massachusetts, 13 use the ACS system, 5 use Browntech and 3 use something else. Here’s the breakdown by registry:

ACS:

Bershire North (Adams)
Berkshire South (Great Barrington)
Berkshire Middle (Pittsfield)
Bristol North (Taunton)
Bristol Fall River (Fall River)
Dukes (Martha’s Vineyard)
Franklin (Greenfield)
Hampshire (Northampton)
Middlesex North (Lowell)
Middlesex South (Cambridge)
Nantucket (Nantucket)
Suffolk (Boston)
Worcester South (Worcester)

Browntech

Barnstable (Barnstable)
Essex North (Lawrence)
Hampden (Springfield)
Norfolk (Dedham)
Worcester North (Fitchburg)

The Essex South registry in Salem and the Plymouth registry both still use home-grown systems but are in the process of replacing them. The Bristol South registry (New Bedford) continues to use an in-house system.