This article discusses blockchain for title transfer with title companies eventually having a diminished roll in transactions.
Reading it made me wonder what the implications will be for surveying...
Title companies do more than transfer title. They uncover issues with title and possible claims as regards your bundles of rights. What good is a block chain if an easement is not in said chain?
As an example, we found evidence of a force main running through the property being transferred. The easement was lost in the chain of title. A record owner search showed nothing, but it turned up within a 60 year search.
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Indeed, what good is it?
I guess my point in bringing this up is that if surveyors aren't involve in the discussion, others will make decisions, perhaps uninformed decisions, about the issue.
Indeed, what good is it?
I guess my point in bringing this up is that if surveyors aren't involve in the discussion, others will make decisions, perhaps uninformed decisions, about the issue.
It's "progress" and in the 21st century West "progress" in and of itself is an a priori good.?ÿ ?ÿIt's a Whig History world, questioning progress is sacrilege.?ÿ
It sounds like a Torrens title registry without the guarantees. It's a great idea to collect all the records into one grand database, but those records still need to be interpreted.
Two points. If you look at the Franklin County website mentioned by the story the OP summarized, and search for "blockchain", all you find is a link to a newspaper story covering Franklin County Auditor Clarence Mingo yammering. Unless their website search sucks, there is nothing operational or formally proposed.
Second point: blockchain itself only stores a hash of a document, possibly signed with an electronic signature of someone who submitted the hash. So an unscrupulous home assistant to an elderly person who spends winters down south gathers info about the home up north, writes a deed "selling" the property to her boyfriend, buys a fake notary seal, forges the elder's signature and a notary's signature, and sends it up north to be recorded. The clerk scans the paper document, creates a hash of the image file, and puts the hash on the blockchain under the clerk's electronic signature. What does this accomplish in terms of protecting the homeowner or someone who "buys" it from the boyfriend? Nothing. The only thing it protects against is the recording clerk later saying the recording never happened.