AlbanyCounty.com

Albany County Clerk Tom Clingan Advises Property Owners to Beware of Deed Copy Scam – UPDATED

Statement of Albany County Clerk Thomas G. Clingan:

My office has received calls from concerned property owners about communications that they've received from "New York Retrieval, Inc" offering to secure a certified copy of the deed to their property for a fee of nearly $60.00.

This private company is in fact re-selling certified copies of deeds that can be purchased directly from my office for about ONE-TENTH of that price.

I am asking the news media to let the public know that these mailings are NOT coming from my office, which is the ONLY source for certified copies of property deeds. The public needs to know that New York Retrieval, Inc., is NOT a government entity.

Any Albany County property owner with internet access can go to the County's website at www.albanycounty.com and click on "Deeds and Mortgages Online" and (in most cases) quickly view a non-certified image of their deed, as long as the deed was recorded here after 1980. This service is absolutely free.

Should you need a CERTIFIED copy, our charge to provide this is $1.25 per page with a minimum of $5.00, and since most deeds are four pages or less, this means that a certified copy purchased directly from our office costs much, much less than from this private firm.

If you read the fine print of New York Retrieval's offer, or look carefully at their website, you will see that if you pay this high price for a copy from them, they will simply order that copy from our office and pay only $5.00 for it. The rest of their fee is pure profit, and no property owner should be tricked into paying ten times more than they should. What's more, this company is asking you to give them your credit card number in payment, something I cannot recommend. We never ask for credit card information, but ask customers to send us a check, which is much safer.

Other County Clerks across New York State are also warning their constituents not to fall for this scheme. I ask any property owner who is considering this solicitation to call my office at (518) 487-5110 instead, and save themselves over $50 by doing so. It is the job of the County Clerk to maintain your records in a safe and secure manner, and to provide you with copies at a reasonable price.

UPDATE: A new law in New York State will make it illegal to send the solicitations described above UNLESS the solicitation clearly spells out that you can obtain a certified copy directly from the County Clerk for less than $20. This law took effect on October 7, 2008.

Video of County Clerk Tom Clingan discussing the deed copy scam