This month I want to talk about the revenue that is generated at the Atlantic County Clerk’s Office.
Let me begin by saying that the office is a collector of Realty Transfer Fees that are passed through to the state of New Jersey.
Other fees that are collected are divided to various other county agencies as I will explain. There are two different ways to record documents at the clerk’s office they can either be e-recorded, mailed-in and/or hand walked-in to our Mays Landing office, which is located in the county seat, or at our Atlantic City office which is located in the county office building in Atlantic City.
The office handles many types of documents that have to do with your land. At some point in everyone’s life they will come into contact with the Clerk’s Office.
Items such as, deeds, mortgages, notice of settlements, federal tax liens are all recorded at the County Clerk’s Office. During the 2021 year office recorded a total of 76,665 documents. 63,079 or 82 percent were e-recorded (sent in electronically).
Meaning that there was not paper copy. The other 13,586 were either mailed or hand delivered.
So now let’s talk dollars and cents, a total of $33,468,234.60 was brought as revenue. Of that money $24,155,073.55 went directly to the state of New Jersey for Realty Transfer Fees, $7,541,331.05 went to the county for tax relief which is used for both the county health department and county nursing home and lastly $1,771,830.00 went to the state of New Jersey for records preservation.
Revenue included in those numbers also come from services that are rendered such as passport services, notary services and business trade names.
As of March 31, 2022 the Clerk’s Office has handled 14,728 documents, 14,193 through e-record. Revenue to this point is $6,867,365.75.
Above all those that have been recorded the office had 4,908 documents rejected for an imperfection of some type. Rejections slow the process and create delays in recording documents.
Our office is working with all entities to show where common and repeated imperfections occur. This will assist everyone in the process.
So if or when you utilize the Atlantic Clerk’s Office I hope that the explanation above explains exactly where the dollars that are collected are used and for what purpose.
As always if you have any questions please reach out to me at (609) 625-4011.
Joseph J. Giralo
Atlantic County Clerk
Mays Landing