Davis County recorder's efficiency honored

FARMINGTON — Like many people who receive honors for the work they do, Davis County Recorder Richard Maughan is just doing his job.

That means making sure all land records in Davis County have the correct ownership, acreage, legal descriptions, dimensions and history — a big deal, especially if you're a landowner in the county.

Most people may not realize the role the county recorder plays in property exchanges, but you don't get your house until your property is recorded correctly.

Maughan's involvement in statewide recording issues, as well as his changes to the Davis County Recorder's Office, earned him 2007 Recorder of the Year, an award granted by the 29 recorders who make up the Utah Counties Recorders Association.

Maughan is currently serving as the association's vice president and will ascend to the presidency in November.

"I appreciate their thoughts and confidence," Maughan said Monday. "I didn't expect it. I'm just grateful."

Wayne County Recorder Colleen Brinkerhoff, the recorders association's current president, said Maughan has a great reputation among the state's other recorders and has been willing to get involved with them.

During the 2007 Legislature, he successfully lobbied for a bill that will standardize the documents used by the state's recorders.

But when Maughan ran for office in 2002, he pledged to make the recorder's office more people-friendly. Partly, that meant getting people out of his office, but in a nice way.

To do that, he needed better technology, he said.

During his first years in office, he got rid of an ancient DOS-based mainframe in favor of a modern Windows-based system, which made document searches more efficient.

A year ago, Maughan began signing up title companies with his office's e-recording system. That meant 15 to 20 people no longer would need line up at his office to get their documents recorded by 5 p.m. every day.

"Now, we're recording all day long," Maughan said.

E-recording allows title companies to scan documents and essentially e-mail them to the recorder's office, where they are checked and confirmed in a matter of minutes.

"It saves an amazing amount of time," Maughan said. "And the possibility of losing a document."

In the past year, 41,000 of the roughly 97,000 documents processed by the Davis County Recorder's Office have been recorded electronically, he said.

Not only does e-recording make work faster, it allows employees more time to help those patrons who still come to the service window. And it saves paper, Maughan said.

His office also sells compact discs of all 48,000 official property drawings, or plats, in Davis County.

"I used to buy those plats when I was in the title business," Maughan said