Lowell Deeds

Yesterday we implemented some new procedures for customers recording documents at the Middlesex South Satellite Office here in Lowell. The major change is that all documents to be recorded at that facility must first be reviewed by our employees at the Customer Service Counter. This new process is our attempt to increase customer compliance with the simple document preparation rules we have always asked customers to follow including paper-clipping all pages of a document together, counting the number of pages in each document and writing that number on the document’s first page, ensuring that the return address is somewhere on the document, and completely filling-out the Satellite Office cover sheet. Compliance with these requirements has been spotty which has not posed a problem given the relatively low number of documents we have been taking in. But our volume is slowly rising and could surge upward with little or no warning which could result in long waiting lines of 2003-like proportions. To avoid this, we are trying to streamline our procedures in a way that makes it easier for those customers who come to the registry with their documents already prepared for recording.