Present law generally authorizes registers of deeds to determine whether, and the extent to which, they will send and accept electronic records and electronic signatures to and from other persons and otherwise create, generate, communicate, store, process, use, and rely upon electronic records and electronic signatures. This bill authorizes the following persons to submit electronic records for registration with a register of deeds that accepts electronic records: (1) A licensed attorney; (2) A bank, savings and loan association, savings bank, or credit union; (3) A federally chartered lending institution, a federal government-sponsored entity, an instrumentality of the federal government, or a person approved as a mortgagee by the U.S. to make federally insured loans; (4) A person licensed to make regulated loans; (5) A licensed title insurance company or title insurance agent; or (6) This state, or any county or municipality, utility district, school district, power district, sanitary district, or other political subdivision of this state, and any agency, authority, branch, bureau, commission, corporation, department, or instrumentality of such political subdivision. Present law authorizes county registers to receive for registration any electronic document that is created by making a digitized image of an original paper document that is eligible for registration and is certified as a true and correct copy of the original by a notarized attestation made by an attorney or the original record's custodian. This bill authorizes county registers to receive for registration electronic documents transmitted by electronic filing vendors on behalf of those persons authorized to submit electronic records to registers of deeds under (1) – (6). This bill specifies that it is the responsibility of the electronic filing vendor, and not the county register, to ensure that the vendor is only transmitting electronic documents to county registers from persons authorized to submit electronic records. Also, an electronic filing vendor is liable for any damages resulting from the vendor's failure to comply with the vendor's responsibility.

Statutes affected:
Introduced: 47-10-118, 66-24-203, 66-24-204(a), 66-24-204