Deed Processing

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Unrecorded Deeds

On occasion, a taxpayer will come to the assessor’s office with a deed or other documentation that indicates ownership has changed for a specific parcel, but has not been processed by the probate court. In this situation, the assessor will create a New Case using the information provided by the taxpayer. A name change, ownership change, legal change, or a combination of the three will be performed. When the real deed comes in from the probate court, instead of overwriting all the changes, mark the deed as a Reference Only. Add the parcels affected and the real deed will be attached to the parcel.

Assessment Before Deed is Processed

Situations like this can be handled in a couple of ways. First, if the assessor can identify the parcel, they can perform the assessment before the deed is processed. They will be able to perform the name change, exemption changes, over 65, and disability changes, but not the legal change. When the deed comes through the probate court, a mapper will check the parcel for assessments that may have already been performed. If a previous assessment was performed that changed the name or the owner, the mapper should not perform a name change or ownership change. Make any necessary legal changes and mark the case as processed. Second, if the assessor can’t identify the parcel because the parcel hasn’t been created yet or because there isn’t a mailing address, this is the only time the assessor should use the All Assessments tab to perform the assessment. Mark the assessment for mapping and proceed as normal. The mapper will then go to the Assessment report to add and resolve parcels. The Assessment status will be Signed until the mapper resolves the case. It will change to Completed once the case is resolved.