County clerk making public land records available on Internet

Sussex County- Sussex County Clerk Erma Gormley announces the start of a new program in the clerk's office that offers access to public documents, such as deeds and mortgages, via the Internet. "We're always looking for ways to improve our services to the community, and we're happy to be able to offer a new, efficient and cost-effective system that will benefit so many individuals," Gormley said. The new service n an Internet-based information retrieval system called Landaccess.com n is contracted through Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (ACS). The service allows thir-party access by private citizens, as well as banks, title searchers, mortgage companies and attorneys, to the county's land records index and electronically imaged land records. "For a reasonable fee, data and document images can be downloaded from the convenience of their own office or home computer, without having to physically come in and search our vaults," said Gormley. Gormley encourages title searchers, attorneys and mortgage companies to establish subscriptions on a monthly fee basis that will allow for a prearranged amount of searching and printing. A credit card system also is available for individual researchers to print documents on a pay-per-use basis. "Because of the cost involved and our desire to keep this service affordable to the public, we're going to have to introduce the availability of online records gradually. It's going to be an ongoing process, beginning with an index that dates back to 1964 and images of deeds and mortgages from 1987 to present. The plan is to ultimately make available all records dating back 25 years," said Gormley.