AN ACT relating to reporting requirements.
HB 851 revises Kentucky’s county clerk fee schedule for a wide range of recorded documents and filings, including deeds, mortgages, liens, plats, marriage licenses, candidate filings, notarizations, and other clerk services. The bill increases or standardizes several fees, adds a new fee for recording and indexing real estate mortgages, and preserves existing fees for many other clerk functions. It also specifies how certain fee revenues are to be split between county clerks and the state’s affordable housing trust fund.
The bill also creates or expands reporting and fund-management requirements tied to clerk-generated revenue. It requires quarterly remittance reports for affordable housing trust fund payments and annual reports on receipts, expenditures, and balances for funds used to support permanent records storage and access. For counties with urban-county, charter county, unified local, or consolidated local governments, the bill directs that certain record-storage fees be kept in separate funds for clerk use on records equipment, digitization, software, cloud storage, cybersecurity, and related personnel costs.
HB 851 would amend KRS 64.012, the statute governing county clerk fees, and would affect how clerks collect, retain, and remit revenue from recording and filing services. It would increase the fee for recording many instruments to $33 for up to five pages and set a $63 fee for recording a real estate mortgage up to 30 pages, with $6 from each of those fees directed to the affordable housing trust fund. The bill also establishes a $10 reimbursement for permanent storage of certain records and requires those funds to be segregated and reported annually. County clerks, fiscal courts, urban-county governments, and consolidated local governments would be the primary entities affected, along with applicants paying recording and filing fees and the Kentucky Housing Corporation, which prescribes the remittance form.
The available voting history suggests strong support for the bill, with the House passing a veto override 95-0. No committee transcript is available, but the bill’s structure indicates a policy focus on funding clerk operations, records preservation, and affordable housing through dedicated fee revenue. The absence of recorded opposition in the vote suggests broad agreement on the need to update fee amounts and reporting requirements.
The main points of potential contention are the higher fees imposed on recording and filing services and the new or expanded earmarks for the affordable housing trust fund and records-storage funds. Those who pay recording fees, including property owners, lenders, businesses, and election candidates, may view the increases as added costs. County clerks and local governments may support the dedicated funding for records management and technology, while some stakeholders could question the administrative burden of separate funds, remittance deadlines, and annual reporting requirements. The bill’s use of fee revenue for affordable housing may also draw attention from those who prefer the money remain with local offices or general county operations.