Text (SMS) notifications are now available for Doxpop Property Watch!

Real estate fraud, which used to be an extremely rare occurrence, has been on the rise recently. Doxpop's Property Watch service provides notification of any document filed in your county Recorder's or Register of Deeds' office affecting you or your property. Property Watch is a free tool you can use to detect this first step in fraud immediately. While there is no way to prevent the filing of a fraudulent document, immediate detection will allow you to take action to prevent the next step, which is where the actual theft occurs by using the fraudulent document to "sell" the property or obtain a loan using it as collateral.

Doxpop has offered our email-based Property Watch Service for our partner counties since 2010. Recently, we've been asked to allow subscribers to opt for text notifications instead of, or in addition to the email notices.

We are proud to announce that our long anticipated Text (SMS) notification service, is now available. 

What you need to know:

• If you have an existing Property Watch subscription and don't want to add text notification, you don't have to do anything. Your existing watch will continue to protect you.

• If you have an existing Property Watch subscription and do want to add text notifications, you can just add a new subscription, opting for text notification. If you also want to unsubscribe from the old "email-only" watch, that's easy to do, but not necessary. 

To add a new watch, just go straight to https://watch.doxpop.com and follow the instructions.

If you want to cancel your existing watch, go to https://watch.doxpop.com/property/unsubscribe. Enter the email address you used to sign up, and click on "unsubscribe" and follow the instructions to verify your intent. 

A few hints to make setting up your watch easier:

• When you enter your name, in most cases it's best to leave out your middle initial/name. This is because we want to catch any document filed that references you, even if it doesn't include the middle name. If you omit that portion, we'll search for matching first & last names both with and without the middle initial/name, so you are covered more completely.  
• We locate your property by showing you a list of deeds that match the name you entered. This list may include old deeds as well, because there is no completely reliable way for a computer to determine that you no longer have an interest in a parcel. Just select the deeds for the property(s) you currently own.
• If no deeds are listed, it may be because your name is mis-spelled, or your deed(s) may be old enough to not be on the computer system. If this happens, please carefully check the spelling of your name, and if that doesn't solve the problem, give us a call. (866) 369-7671
• All deeds have a legal description. A few will also have a street address. Since many people don't know their legal description, we provide the street address, if it is available, and the date of the deed along with the person you bought it from to help you identify your property. (If you're unsure which parcels to check, just give us a call, and we'll help.)

We are excited to provide this new option for our partner counties and their citizens! Please don't hesitate to call for help if you find any part of the process is confusing. We can't do the signup work for you, but we'll be happy to be right there with you on the phone to help while you sign up. You can reach our support staff by calling 866-369-7671 during regular working hours (Monday- Friday 8 AM-6 PM Eastern time, excluding holidays.)

Hamilton County Recorded Documents leaving Doxpop

The Hamilton County Recorder's Office will be changing their document management and indexing system on May 1st 2025. This new system is not part of the Doxpop network, and so Hamilton County's documents and property watch services will no longer be available via Doxpop after this transition is completed. 

When the transition is complete, Hamilton County recorded documents will be available online for low volume users through the Tapestry system at https://www.landrecords.com. High volume users can inquire about additional services designed to serve professional researchers by calling the Recorder's Office at (317) 776-9717 during their normal operating hours of 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM, Monday through Friday.

Doxpop Property Watch alerts will also halt when Doxpop stops receiving updates from Hamilton County on May 1st. We will email all current users with instructions for setting up new alerts at that time.

Note: We will keep Hamilton County on our system until June 15th to insure that the new system is working well and the transition is complete before we shut down access through Doxpop. However, it is important to remember that any documents filed after 5/1/2025 will not be found on Doxpop.

Please join us in thanking Hamilton County and their staff for many years of partnership and public service!

Addressing Issues with Submitting Documents

Occasionally when submitting a new case or subsequent filing on an existing case, you may run into the issue that the lead document, and more often attachments, are in a format that the courts can not or will not accept, causing your filing to be rejected. These rejections often provide little to no information as to why the document may have been rejected or failed.

Though there can be a number of things that could cause this, one of the more common issues we run into, is the formatting of the documents. The Indiana Court System is a bit particular in regards to what type of documents it will accept: 

* 50MB is the size limit of any individual document.

* 75MB is the total size allowed for the entire envelope.

* The maximum number of pages can not exceed 250 pages.

* Some fonts are not acceptable within the PDF document. (See examples below.)

Since getting a filing rejected may seem a bit arbitrary, and often the rejection message can lack the exact cause of it not being accepted, we wanted to provide a few points and tips to make this process go smoothly, at least in relation to the documents and attachments that you include in your filings.

#1 A good general rule of thumb is: If you (the submitter) did not create the lead or supporting documents in your filing, then you'll likely benefit from using a “Print to PDF function” to recreate the document(s) before submitting them. This process will often increase the size of the document, but helps by rendering unusual fonts as an image.

This is easily done by selecting the document(s), choosing the “print” option that should be available in the PDF viewing software you are using or familiar with, but instead of printing to a printer, use the drop down to select “Print to PDF”. This will create a “copy” of the original document, which you can then attach to your filing. Doing this will often fix any potential issues with the actual document, especially if you have run into the rejection wall, but are not sure why.

In general, this technique is used for attachments, since those are documents created by others, and hence must be rendered exactly, even if they include fonts unacceptable to the courts. On the other hand, lead documents will almost always be your own work, so in that case, you should just use the correct fonts (see below.) This technique can be used to fix up depositions that are created by specialized software using unusual fonts. 

#2 The Indiana Court System will only accept certain fonts in submitted documents. If  your document(s) do not use one of the fonts listed below, your documents may not be accepted:

Arial

Baskerville

Book Antiqua

Bookman

Bookman Old Style

Century

Century Schoolbook

Calisto MT

CG Times

Garamond

Georgia

New Baskerville

New Century Schoolbook

Palatino

Times New Roman

#3 Lastly, the Indiana Court System has published an E-filing guide which can be very helpful in ensuring your filings will be accepted. The E-Filing Guide provides a detailed explanation of the types and formats of documents that are allowed (and prohibited) to be submitted.  Please see pages 21 - 24 at the link below:

https://www.in.gov/courts/files/efiling-user-guide.pdf

The guide also provides instructions, if you need to submit something to the court that cannot be converted to PDF format.

Amended local rules recently approved by the Indiana Supreme Court.

The local Rules for Clark, Delaware, Johnson and Hancock County Courts have been amended. 

Local attorneys are probably aware of these, but if you're an out-of-county attorney who only files into these counties periodically, it's  worth knowing that they've changed. Note that the links below include only the amendments, not the entire local set of rules, so each is a quick read to keep you up do date.

25S-MS-10

Order Approving Amended Local Rules for Clark County

25S-MS-11
Order Approving Amended Local Rules for Delaware County

25S-MS-4
Order Approving Amended Local Rules for Johnson County

25S-MS-8
Order Approving Amended Local Rule for Hancock County

Jefferson County Recorded Documents now available on Doxpop!

Please join us in welcoming the Jefferson County Recorder's Office to our Doxpop network! The new Recorder, Amy Stephens, has been working to update the office and its services, and has added online search access as well as Property Watch to her county.

Jefferson County's Recorded Document index and images are now searchable at https://www.doxpop.com/prod/in/recorder/FindRecordedDocuments, where you can find advanced search features such as date range, document type, and legal description, along with a superior name search that locates names in any order and includes nicknames and common misspellings. Document PDFs can be purchased and downloaded instantly as well.

Document index data and images begin in Jefferson County January 1, 1993, and are searchable through their current index within 10 minutes. Please note that document numbers have changed formats through the years as shown here:

• 1993 through 1997: 4 digits with no year, for example 2965, 5319
• 1998 through 1999: 6 digits with 2-digit year, for example 980019, 990132
• 2000 through 2003: 8 digits with 4-digit year, for example 20010027, 20038243
• 2004 and later: 9 digits with 4-digit year, for example 200405829, 202303561

Oversized documents such as Plats and Surveys do not yet have images available to purchase and download, but you can contact the Recorder's Office to retrieve those copies as we work to add them to the system.

Jefferson County is also available on the Doxpop Property Watch alert system at https://watch.doxpop.com/property/! 

Quickly set an alert on your name, and any properties you select, to be notified when a matching document is filed in the Recorder's Office. This service is provided to the public of Jefferson County at no cost to you on behalf of the Recorder.

Thank you again to Amy Stephens, her staff, and Jefferson County for their partnership in offering Doxpop online access. For questions, concerns, or assistance with any Doxpop service, please contact us at support@doxpop.com or 866-369-7671.

New year, new rules: Three New Case Types

 Beginning on 1/1/2025, Three new types will be available to filers:

CE is the new filing type for cases eligible for the Commercial Court Docket. The general purpose of commercial courts is to provide venues that are adept at managing the complexities of commercial litigation. Permanent commercial courts have been established in Allen, Elkhart, Vanderburgh, Floyd, Lake, and Marion counties, but the case type is available in all jurisdictions. This case type can be used for initial filings via the e-filing system. Civil filing fees and a jury fee are required.

• Eligibility Requirements.
• Cases that are not eligible.
• Commercial Court Rules.
• Handbook and library of forms.

GV is the new filing type for cases petitioning for grandparent visitation per IC 31-17-5. Cases can be initiated for this type via the e-filing system, and the regular civil filing fee applies.

RA  is the new filing type for Review of an Administrative Agency Decision per I.C. 4-21.5-5.

The new Case Type Quick Reference Guide includes these additions. Having this document or a link to it is something we recommend to all of the e-filers we work with.

Here is the order that adds these three new case types.

Henry County Recorded Documents leaving Doxpop

 

The Henry County Recorder's Office will be changing software systems in January 2025. This new system is not part of the Doxpop network, and so their documents and services will no longer be available via Doxpop once this transition is completed. 

The planned start date for the new system is January 1st, 2025 and we will be working to help make sure that the transition goes as smoothly as possible for users. Once the transition is complete, Henry County recorded documents will be available through Tapestry at https://www.landrecords.com. High volume users can inquire about additional services by calling the Recorder's Office at (765) 529-4304 during operating hours:

Monday Closed;  Tuesday through Thursday 7 AM to 5 PM;  Friday 7 AM to 4 PM

Doxpop Property Watch alerts will also halt when Doxpop stops receiving updates from Henry County on January 1st. We will notify all current users with instructions for setting up new alerts at that time.

Note: We will keep Henry County on our system for a couple of weeks after the transition to ensure that the new system is working well before we shut down access through Doxpop, but it is important to know that any documents filed after 12/27/2024 will not be found on Doxpop.

Please join us in thanking Henry County and their staff for many years of partnership and public service!