Hamilton County Register of Deeds Marc Gravitt announced plans on Wednesday to change the hours of operation for the Register of Deeds office. Starting on Oct. 1, the Register of Deeds office will open at 8 a.m. and close at 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Before the availability of online access to important legal documents and land records, the walk-in traffic for the Register of Deeds office was extremely heavy, especially with title examiners who needed extended office hours. With the implementation of online information and E-Filing, the amount of the foot traffic to the Register’s Office has dropped nearly 90 percent.
“Since taking office almost 30 days ago, I have been monitoring the amount of foot traffic coming in and out of the Register of Deeds office, and I quickly noticed that there was very little, if any, walk-in traffic before 8:30 a.m.
and after 4 p.m. on any given day,” said Mr. Gravitt.
“With the current schedule, each department in the office is short one staff person every day. By making this slight change in our hours of operation, each department will be fully staffed throughout the day and will be better prepared to serve the needs of local citizens.”
Before making this change, Mr. Gravitt discussed the new hours of operation and its impact with those who frequently use the Register of Deeds office and his staff.
He said, “The overall response was supportive of this change as we all believe it will make the office more efficient and enable us to provide better customer service to the citizens of Hamilton County. More important, this change will save taxpayer funds since we are not hiring additional staff to support the hours of operation during those hours where there was little demand.”