I actually attended the Texas House hearing today where a "proposed"
bill was to be discussed.  That bill was designed to essentially repeal
the opinion previously issued by the Texas Attorney General. The hearing
never took place.  Apparently the Attorney General surmised that there
were some very serious logistical roadblocks to the efforts of County
Clerks to implement his decision, and recognized that the "real world
consequence" of his opinion put a "virtual halt to a tremendous amount
of business and commerce in Texas."  The text in quotations comes
directly from the AG's letter of this morning.  

 

The end result?  The Attorney General has "abated" his opinion for a
period of 60 days in order to allow the Legislature "ample time" for
thorough deliberation and action.  Perhaps now..... there can be an
effort to balance privacy interests against the need for the free flow
of information to enable oil and gas exploration (we still do that
here), and to facilitate the buying and selling of property of all
types.  

 

Interesting to note was that many County Clerks were well aware that
those who prepare documents for filing were STILL, as of YESTERDAY
including items like... complete divorce decrees that contain the social
security numbers of ALL family members - yep, including children, and
photo copies of drivers licenses - yep, the ENTIRE license.  This
information is NOT required for filing, but some or several
knuckleheaded firms and individuals apparently insist on including that
information as a part of their filings!!!

 

For anyone who would like to have a copy of today's letter, please send
me a note off-line.  I suspect that there may be a few listserv
participants who'd like at least a one week reprieve on "all things
Texas"

 

Douglas P. Allen, CRM, CDIA+ (and ex-Yankee)

[log in to unmask]     

 


List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance