Macomb County wanted tomake public records search andfraud detection as easy as possible.

Xerox helped transform the vision intoreality. An innovative, visionary “SuperIndex” supercharges real estate recordssearch capabilities while effectivelycombatting mortgage fraud.

Macomb County, MICase Study

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The Challenge Macomb County, Michigan, is one of the three counties comprising the Detroit metropolitan area. While the area is known for manufacturing, county officialss are known for using technology to make their citizens’ lives easier. Back in 1996, the county partnered with Xerox to image and index land recordsdatng back to 1818, making Macomb the firsticounty in Michigan with computerized imagingand indexing. The system now has roughly

Although the system worked well, an increase in mortgage fraud nationwide, in combination with a growing local housing market, left county officials wanting more.

At the time, fraudulent mortgage warehouses

notarized by a fic ctitious “Linda Green” made national headlines. Yet, even the most sophisticated land records databases weren’t searchable by notary. In fact, most weren’t even searchable by anything more than the very basics. Not only did this make it more

seekers to search, but easier for criminals to hide deceptive mortgage practices.

Macomb County Clerk and Register of Deeds Carmella Sabaugh believed it was time for a new change.

“The American Dream of homeownership was threatened by loose regulations and a lack of accountability,” Sabaugh said. “In Macomb County, Michigan we have the audacity to believe in the American Dream. So, we were willing to take bold action to make it harder to hide fraudulent mortgage practices.”

Her vision? A Super Index, enabling constituents, corporate users and law enforcement personnel to conduct freeform land record searches, by almost any variable, as simple as “googling” a topic on the Internet. Althoughno one in the industry had ever attempted something of th is magnitude, Sabaugh knew, with the right team, it could be done.

She chose Xerox and Google to create the solution that brought this vision to life.

The Solution Although the county had images of its land records, images alone weren’t enough to support the multitude of search variables

county officials desired. Each of those 7

OCR PDFs. The resulting text and images were loaded into a Google Search Appliance™ and merged with a lmost 200 years of indexes to create a Super Index.

Our team also researched ways the index itself could be used to increase search relevance, adding the capability to identify, for example, every property for which Bob Smith is a grantee or Mary Jones is the notary. At the time, all of the records didn’t even include spouse information, so a variety of new index categories, both for residential and fraud prevention use, were required.

Because of the complexity involved with this project, Macomb County Officials agreed to an18-month proof-of-concept, in which we:

• OCR’ed eight years’ worth of images

• Designed an interface around the standard Google search yet with the complexity required for the Super Index

• Identified the different types of searches

• Create a prototype for testing among

One of the challenges of the Super Index was the fact that it had to work for a multitude of user types – from residents to title companies, from law enforcement personnel to other commercial enterprises. To make sure the

the prototype was field tested by a test group handselect ed by Sabaugh herself. As a result, the team gained a lot of good feedback from the right types of users, and a confirmationthat the project was headed d own the right path.

From here, we moved to production mode, working through the nuances of emailing receipts, extrac ting data, and adding features like intuitive search for partical identification numbers and other conveniences – all while continuing to convert the remaining electronic

The Results The Super Index had a soft rollout early 2013, with a more expansive “go live” scheduled for April of 2013. The index, which has already been recognized with awards and honors, has

produced the following results – even in its primary adoption stages:

• Provides residents with greater access to Macomb County land records

• Provides law enforcement personnel and others with a tremendous tool to research fraudulent activities

• Gives land record professionals, title companies and other commercial users a versatile tool to make their jobs more efficient

• Enables users to perform searches by an unlimited number of variables instead of the standard 16 indexed fields

• Speeds search time from minutes to seconds

• Provides images in popular PDF format

• Provides navigators to narrow down search results to show the desired d ocuments .

The solutional so employs Google Analytics™ to track system usage and user patterns. By mining this data, we can continue to optimize the system and deliver a better user experience over time.

Macomb County is also positioned to expand this techno logy in the future, incorporating voice searches, mobile search capabilities and Google Maps™.

But, today, Macomb County officials are receiving accolades from users, the press and other government entities for following a vision and accomplishing something no other agency had done before.

“Property owners now have a tool to protect their property rights,” Sabaugh said. “With help from Xerox and Google, Macomb County is making the search for the American Dream a little easier.”

The Bottom Line

Super Index that made land record searches as simple – and with as many variables – as Google searches on the Internet , to make life easier for its citizens and co mmercial users, while offering the real-time data mining needed to combat mortgage fraud. With help from Xerox and Google, this vision became reality with a first-of-its-kind index that is making headlines nationwide.

seven million records.

were on the upswing. Falsified documents,

difficult for property owners and home

million files would have to be converted to

different, predetermined stakeholders

resulting product fulfilled everyone’s needs,

files to OCR PDFs.

Macomb County officials had a vision: a