Need to find a deed from 1822? Rush County's historical deed indexes are now online!

This week, we are pleased to announce that images of the Historical Indexes in Rush County are available via Doxpop.

This is important for researchers because although many older documents have been scanned, until they are also indexed on the computer, the only way to locate them is by looking in the index books and then using the Book & Page to find the image.

Although many Recorders are working to "back-index" all of those old images, it will take some time to accomplish that. In the meantime, you can use the online version of the book index to locate the older document images. You can browse the books just as you would in the office, and when you locate the document you need, enter the Book & Page in the search area in the top right corner, and go straight to that image (if it exists.) 

You can access the historical book indexes from Doxpop's advanced Recorded Document search page or from the Recorded Documents tab. Here's a direct link if you want to give it a try right away: https://www.doxpop.com/prod/in/recorder/ManualIndex/18188

Congratulations to Debbie Richardson and her staff for making this new feature available for Rush County!

Dearborn Historical Indexes- Now you can browse the index for deeds from 1903 online!

The Dearborn County Recorder is doing some great work to preserve records and provide greater online access by back-indexing deeds on their computer system and adding access to scanned images of the historical paper indexes.

On the computer indexing side, they have been adding scanned images of older deeds, and indexing them. The most recent batch released covers 1988, so Dearborn now has 37 years of deed history fully indexed and available online. The index for all document types begins in July of 2000, providing nearly 25 years of full document history.

This back-indexing work is an important part of record preservation and access because it is much easier to archive multiple copies of images and index information when it is in electronic form. 

Those familiar with local history will know that in 1826, the Dearborn County Courthouse burned, destroying all records stored there. If a similar disaster were to occur today, the County's Recorded Documents would continue to be available without interruption online while rebuilding or office relocation occurred. In addition, full recovery of the electronic records could be done in about one day, so "restarting" the office would be a relatively easy task.

In a related preservation project, the Recorder has scanned the paper index that covers deeds from the year 1903 forward. Now that these records are in electronic form, they are similarly preserved in case of disaster, and as an added benefit, they are now available online through Doxpop's advanced search page. 

When you use the images of the paper index, you should be aware that this is a snapshot of the paper index, and any manual corrections or notes made after that snapshot won't appear. Fortunately, these corrections are rare, given the historical nature of the information.

Please join us in congratulating Joyce Oles and her excellent staff for all of the work they have put into both preserving documents and making them more readily available online!

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

Update: Hamilton County's documents will continue to be available through July 1, 2025, not June 15th, as originally planned. (Details here.)

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 on or 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!

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.

Welcome to the Fayette County Recorder's Office!

Please join us in celebrating some big changes in Fayette County, Indiana!

Fayette County is the 43rd Recorder to join Doxpop

The Fayette County Recorder's Office, led by Recorder Ruth Nutty, has transitioned to a new, local software package that allows us to add them to the Doxpop Public Access System. Having completed that technical conversion last week, they are ready to increase their public access offerings by making these land records available 24/7.

Scanned images are available to view and purchase, along with a searchable index for all documents filed since January 1994. Anyone wishing to look up recorded documents on-line may visit http://www.doxpop.com to use the service. A low-volume search plan is available for free, with higher-volume subscriptions available to commercial users for a fee.

Search full text of Recorded Documents!

Doxpop has been working to scan through the land records offered by our 42 County Recorder Partners to add tools that allow searching of document text, along with any text entered about that document, including full document types and notes or memo field entries.

This means that in addition to the search fields currently offered by our advanced search, you can add information that appears on the document itself. However, this new field is not limited only to the text of documents, you may also use it to search for additional document information that has been indexed on the document, such as a second party when the search results for a single party return too many records. Use this field on its own with a collection of relevant words, or in conjunction with our many advanced search fields.

There are several ways we expect this to be helpful for you. Have you ever struggled to search for:

• specific document types not listed in the dropdown?
• multiple names on one document?
• multiple legal descriptions on one document?
• personal representative or estate records?

Now you can use this additional field to capture additional information and narrow your results.

A snippet of the matching text is included with the search results, along with the document record.

Search for exact document types to narrow your search quickly.

Please note that OCR scanning technology is limited. We can only scan and search documents that are legible to the computer and scanned reasonably well, which means that most historical documents won't return good results this way. But keep in mind that this new field is still using all available data for every document, so it can still add value in this way.

If you have a specific use for this field, please comment here or share it with us! We'd love to know how our customers are using this field and how to make it better!

Welcome to the Wells County Recorder!

Please join us in welcoming Carolyn Bertsch and the Well's County Recorder's Office to Doxpop's online access system!

Wells County is our 42nd Recorder to come online

The Wells County Recorder's Office has transitioned to a new, local software package that allows us to add them to the Doxpop Public Access System. Having now completed that technical conversion, they are ready to increase their public access offerings by making these land records available 24/7.

Scanned images are available to view and purchase, along with a searchable index for all documents filed since January 2006. Additional index records available beyond that date will have images soon. The Recorder's Office is hoping to scan and digitize many more historical documents, so be on the lookout for more data to be added!

Anyone wishing to look up recorded documents on-line may visit http://www.doxpop.com to use the service. A low-volume search plan is available for free, with higher-volume subscriptions available to commercial users for a fee.

Lawrence County, IN Recorder's Office now online!

Doxpop is delighted to announce the addition of the Lawrence County Recorder to our online public access services!

A big welcome to the newest member of our team, #41 Lawrence County!

The Lawrence County Recorder's Office has chosen our online services to supplement their public access offerings. In addition to the access provided in their office, records will now be available online 24/7 through Doxpop.

Document images and an index searchable by name, date, legal description, and many other details are available back to December 1994. The Recorder's staff is working to provide indices beyond that date to link up the additional older scanned document images. The copy fees collected through Doxpop are remitted back to the Recorder's Office to provide the funds to preserve and perpetuate their records, as well as to fund additional digitization efforts.

Anyone wishing to look up recorded documents on-line may visit www.doxpop.com to use the service. A low-volume search plan is available for free, with higher-volume subscriptions available to commercial users for a fee.

Recorded Document pages over 11" x 17" no longer charged differently

July 1st, 2017 saw many changes in fees for Indiana Recorder's Offices, including an increase in fees for large-format Recorded Document pages, such as Plats. This fee was increased from $2 to $5 per page. Doxpop had previously been collecting $2 per page for our Recorders, and so our fees also increased to reflect this.

The increase prompted a number of calls, and upon asking several of our partner Recorders it seemed that there wasn't a unified approach to the new fee. Both Doxpop and our partners wished for a better, more unified interpretation of that rule, so we contacted the Indiana Recorder's Association to seek guidance.

The Recorder's Association has recommended that recorders collect $1 per page for all copies delivered online. Doxpop has updated our system to reflect this recommendation, and there is no longer an upcharge for large-format Recorded Document pages.

Please keep an eye out for fee updates in the future as Recorders work through how to respond to the changes in law, but for now, we have set the base fee for all documents obtained through Doxpop to $1 per page regardless of size.

Remember that in addition to the Recorder's fee, Doxpop may charge a fee as well. If you are on the 6-search plan (with no subscription fee), the total charge for documents is $2 per page. If you are are on the 20-search or 60-search plans, the total charge is $1.35. On the 200-search and above plans, there is no additional fee, so you just pay the $1 that we pass along to the Recorder.

This change takes effect immediately. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions!

Welcome to the Boone County Recorder's Office!

We're excited to announce the addition of Nikki Baldwin and her staff at the Boone County Recorder's Office to the Doxpop Family!

Boone County will be our 40th Recorder's Office to join, which we think is pretty spectacular.

The Boone County Recorder's Office has been transitioning to a new, local software package that allows us to add them to the Doxpop Public Access System. Having now completed that technical conversion, they are ready to increase their public access offerings by making these land records available 24/7.

Images and a searchable index is available for all documents filed since January 1996, with additional Deed records back to January 1993. The Recorder's Office is hoping to scan and digitize many more historical documents, so be on the lookout for more data to be added!

Anyone wishing to look up recorded documents on-line may visit http://www.doxpop.com to use the service. A low-volume search plan is available for free, with higher-volume subscriptions available to commercial users for a fee.

New Predictable Recording Fees, Effective July 1st

Filing fees for Recording Documents in Indiana are changing. Beginning July 1st, 2017, Recorders Offices across Indiana will begin using a new fee schedule meant to make your filing fees simpler and more predictable.

Keep in mind that these fees will apply based on when the documents are received in the Recorder's Office. Another small change to the fee schedule raises the fee for oversized copies (largely for plats) to $5.00 per page.

Mortgages	$55.00
including Subordinate Mortgages and re-recorded mortgages
Deeds and all other instruments	$25.00
including re-recorded documents Other recording fees to be aware of:
The flat filing fee allows up to one oversize page per document.
Each additional page over 8.5" x 14"	$5.00
For Mechanic's Liens, your filing fee includes one mail out.
Each additional mail out	$2.00
For multiple transaction documents (a/k/a blanket documents), your filing fee includes one cross reference.
Each additional cross reference	$7.00
Copy Fees:
Copies 11" x 17" or smaller, per page	$1.00
Copies larger than 11" x 17", per page	$5.00
Certification of Document	$5.00
UCC Filings have not changed, but those fees are:
UCC Filing, Continuation, Amendment, or Assignment
1 or 2 pages	$9.00
3 or more pages	$13.00
UCC-11 Information Request
single debtor name	$10.00
each additional name	$5.00

Also be aware that Marion County has an additional fund collected through the Recorder's Office for housing, and that will create a longer transition period in that county. The fees for Marion County beginning July 1st, and the anticipated final fees can be found here:

http://www.indy.gov/eGov/County/Recorder/Documents/FeeChangeNotice.pdf

For additional information about these changes and other details of Senate Bill 505, the page for that and links to the full text are here:

https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2017/bills/senate/505

Recorded Document Performance Improvements

Doxpop just released a change to our process for fetching information about Recorded Documents and displaying document images.

This change will increase the speed of the entire Recorded Document service. It's our early Christmas present to the folks who make heavy use of that section of our web site!

In addition, a few weeks ago we provided a new button to return directly to your most recent search results from any of the document viewing pages, avoiding the need to page back through the intervening pages with your browser's "back" button.

Give the improved Recorded Document section a spin and let us know if it makes your work easier!

New: Quickly find Easements in Land Records

In order to respond to a request from some of our newer users, we've broken out documents that are or relate directly to Easements into their own document type. These documents were generally located under Miscellaneous in the past, and this change should make them easier to locate.

To see all of the document type options, visit our Advanced Search in the "recorded documents" or "register of deeds" tab and select the drop-down menu for Document Type. This will display all of our searchable document types.

For more help with Advanced Search, visit our help section or contact us.

Validation date added to Recorder (IN) and Register of Deeds (MI) records.

Doxpop has just added a "validation time" for Recorder and Register of Deeds offices. This is similar to what many offices call their "effective date". Here's how it works:

The validation time for each county office is the recording time of the most recent document that has been verified. This means all documents recorded at the same office before that time have been completely indexed and verified.

This works because the indexing system used by all Recorders and Registers that send their information to Doxpop is designed to ensure that documents are indexed and verified in the order they are received. The validation time allows researchers put the appropriate effective date on research they do through Doxpop.

• When selecting a single-county region for any document search, you will find the validation time for the county displayed under the region box. 

• When viewing the index details for any document, you will find the validation time for the source county of that document in the top left corner, next to the county name.

Here's an example:

If you have any questions about validation times, please feel free to give us a call or email.

Welcome to the Decatur County Recorder!

Today we welcome Denise Ziegler and her fine staff from the Decatur County Recorder's office to the family of Recorders who have made their information available on-line without using any public funding.  Both the index and images for Recorded Documents filed after 1993 are available through this service.

In addition, the Doxpop Property Watch service is now available for Decatur County at no cost. This service allows landowners to set a "watch" for any documents filed referencing their property, thus providing an early warning and deterrent for fraudulent filings that might be the first steps for identity theft.

The Recorder's office joins the Decatur County Clerk in making public records available via Doxpop. Court records from Decatur County are available for cases filed after 1997 are available.

December court updates released for Odyssey counties, Welcome to the Rush County Recorder!

The December update to court data sent from the State's Odyssey case management system has been released. During this release cycle, we focused on releasing the information quickly rather than adding new enhancements. Throughout the remainder of this month, we'll be working on enhancements that will be released with the January update.

Also of note: Today we welcome the Rush County Recorder to the Doxpop network! Rush County is the 20th Indiana Recorder to make documents available on-line via Doxpop, with an index reaching back to August 1997 and images available for documents recorded beginning in December 1998.

Thanks to Sally Neidenthal and her staff for becoming our 20th Recorded Documents partner!

Directory of Indiana local government information now available.

Last week on this blog, we introduced a comprehensive and growing set of links to local government information in Indiana. You can find it by following the link in the right sidebar of this blog.

This is a community effort- We invite all of you to pass along any links we've missed or let us know of corrections.

Thanks to Tina Gunter in the title division at Doyle Legal, who jumped in right away to add several important links to information from Marion County!

Henry County Recorded Documents & Property Watch Now Available on Doxpop

Doxpop is pleased to welcome the Henry County Recorder as the newest local government information provider in the Doxpop community.

The Henry County document index extends back to 1990 while images extend back to January of 1998.

Doxpop is also pleased to announce that our newest feature, Doxpop Property Watch, is now available in Henry County.

Doxpop Property Watch is a free service that helps prevent fraud by notifying people when documents are filed that affect their property. Early warning when unexpected or suspicious documents are filed provides property owners with a powerful tool to stop fraud in the early stages. Doxpop Property Watch sets watches both on a property owner's name and on properties.

Henry and the many other counties working with Doxpop help serve the public interest by making information available via the web at no cost to the county. Doxpop provides a range of tools designed to facilitate timely and efficient communication between county agencies and those who use county data.

Doxpop has been providing public access to Indiana court records since 2002 and Indiana recorded documents since 2005. Henry County is the 12th Recorder's office to join the Doxpop network, which currently provides access to over 12 million court case records and over 4.5 million recorded documents.

Union County Recorded Documents Now Available On Doxpop

Doxpop is pleased to welcome the Union County Recorder as the newest local government information provider in the Doxpop community.

The Union County document index and images extend back to August 2005.

Union and the many other counties working with Doxpop help serve the public interest by making information available via the web at no cost to the county. Doxpop provides a range of tools designed to facilitate timely and efficient communication between county agencies and those who use county data.

Doxpop has been providing public access to Indiana court records since 2002 and Indiana recorded documents since 2005. Union County is the 11th Recorder's office to join the Doxpop network, which currently provides access to over 12 million court case records and over 4.5 million recorded documents.