New System Streamlines Filing Of Important Documents For Chancery Clerk Offices In Northeast Mississippi

TUPELO, Miss. (WCBI) – A new system to record documents for area chancery clerks is saving time and money.

Bill Benson has seen a lot of changes since he became Lee County Chancery Clerk in 1992. He says the most dramatic involve advances in technology.

“We’ve gone from , when I first got here, a lady who sat at a typewriter and typed every transaction, that occurred,” Benson said.

Those documents recording the sale and purchase of property were kept in large, bound books from the late 1800s. Until the year 2000, when documents were scanned and stored on computers.

The paperwork had to be delivered, or mailed to the chancery clerk’s office.

But the “County Records Management System” allows banks, attorneys and others to electronically file deeds and other documents, without having to appear at the courthouse.

“Cuts down any risk of loss, of the document, cuts down time, within the same day and typically within just less than an hour they will have a recorded document back in their hands, where if they’re trying to close a loan, trying to close a sale, they have information immediately,” Benson said.

CRMS was developed by the Three Rivers Planning and Development District, MSU’s National Strategic Planning and Analysis Research Center, and technology partner, Simplifile.

Lee County was in the pilot program, but now all eight counties in the Three Rivers area are online.

The records are backed up in case of hardware failure, there is no additional cost to the chancery clerk, and filing fees are billed to the sender through simplifile.

For now, Benson says the system is primarily used by large, out of state banks, but he expects more locals to use the new service once people understand the savings in time and money.

There is also a public portal available.