Hawaii real estate recording system moves closer to electronic age - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

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Meanwhile, a separate bill that would transfer time-sharde sales out of Land Court to the regular recording systemm also isgaining momentum. Currently, all real estate recordiny documents in Hawaii must be carried or mailed to the in where they are scannedand microfilmed, a laborious and time-consuming process. House Bill 271 would alloaw the Bureau of Conveyances to accept electronic documents with electronic signatures for recording realestate transactions. It also wouldc allow the bureau to keep a digital archive instead of havin g to put every document on A similar proposal failedlast year.
The bill passedd first crossover, passed second readingv in the Senate this week and awaitx a hearing beforethe Senate’se Judiciary and Government Operationxs Committee. It has the suppory of the Hawaii Land Title which represents title andescros companies; the ; and the state , whicyh oversees the Bureau of Conveyances. The bureau also is askint to raise its recording feefrom $25 to $30, and has askexd that lawmakers raise the bureau’sd revenue ceiling — the bureau is funded by its fees by $650,000 to pay for new software and computers and to train the staff, said registrar Nicki Thompson.
The new software will improvwe productivity, provide new security and increase the efficiencgy of thebureau staff, Denise Kaehu, president of the Hawaiij Land Title Association, said in written testimony. She said it also will “be able to providew online cashiering of all funds received andprovide much-needed statistical reports to the management staff of the bureau and ultimately benefit the people of Hawaii.” The bureay plans to pilot the electronic document systemn with filings covered by the federapl uniform commercial code, such as financiak statements, which don’t require a signature or a change in state law.
If the bill the bureau still will need to createe rules and get inputfrom stakeholders, who include title and escrowe companies, lenders and attorneys. “This is not going to be Thompson said. House Bill 271 is based on the Uniforj Real Property ElectronicRecording Act, which has been adopte d in 18 states and the Districyt of Columbia. Lawmakers in three other states — Georgia and Rhode Island — also are consideringf the legislationthis year, according to the National Conference of Commissionersa on Uniform State Laws Web The uniform act would equate electroni documents and electronic signatures to their original paper documents and according to Peter Hamasaki, who testifiedd in support of the legislation on behalf of the Commission to Promotwe Uniform Legislation.
The bill also woulde allow the Bureau of Conveyances and the state Department of Accounting and General Services to provide maps orplans electronically, and alloq the bureau to provide electronic copies of documentzs upon request and to convery documents filed before 1991 to be scannec into electronic form. The Bureau of Conveyances, whicn had been overwhelmed by a backlog of paper documentsdurinb Hawaii’s real estate boom, is caugh up in its indexing to just a couple of days after the recording date, compare to early 2008, when it had a 140-dau backlog.
Meanwhile, Senate Bill 1352 could lightennthe bureau’s workload further by takinb time-share recordings out of Land Court, whic h certifies land ownership by tracing each transactiobn back to the monarchy, before the Great Mahelew of 1859, when land was divided and sold for the first Land Court reviews still are nearly two years behind because they are so