Analysis2007 has been an eventful year for enactments of the Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act. Illinois becomes the sixth state to enact the URPERA this year, and the fourteenth overall. Even prior to SB 319 becoming law, the NNA was aware that the counties of Champaign, Cook, DuPage, McHenry, McLean and Rock Island were accepting electronic documents for recording in the official land records. Since URPERA is typically enacted in order to provide a statutory basis for electronic recording, it is unclear whether these counties “jumped the gun” or had prior permission to implement electronic recording. All named counties except McHenry and McLean were performing “Level 3” e-recording; with Level 3 e-recording documents are created, signed, notarized, transmitted and recorded as entirely electronic documents; no paper is ever used. These counties (including McHenry and McLean) also were performing “Level 2” e-recording, where documents are created on paper, signed and notarized using pen-and-ink signatures and physical Notary seals, and then electronically scanned and transmitted to the recorder’s office as electronic documents. Importantly, Illinois’ URPERA contains the security provision requiring the electronic recording commission to adopt “standards requiring adequate information security protection to ensure that electronic documents are accurate, authentic, adequately preserved, and resistant to tampering.”
Read Senate Bill 319.