The real estate records nightmare that has caused problems for people buying and selling property in Orleans Parish since October is finally over, according to Civil Clerk of Court Dale Atkins.
Atkins' office opened its doors January 4th for the first time in 2011, and outside of a few expected glitches, all the mortgage and conveyance records are again accessible.
Workers in Atkins' office have been pulling all-nighters since New Year's Eve to get the property records back online. A computer crash more than two months ago brought the whole system to a halt.
"We are what I consider fully operational," Atkins said. "Now we have to do verification of thousands of instruments, so even though the data has been fully restored, we have to do that verification process."
Recovery specialist The Winward Group was brought in to help resurrect the lost data. And the real estate industry reverted to old-fashioned methods to search titles and the like.
"By the time we realized this was going to be long term, they found ways to get around the obstacles, so thankfully we have sort of seen an increase in closings in December," said Joe Ory of the New Orleans Realtors Association.
While the clerk's office was closed for the New Year's holiday, employees worked 24/7 to bring the system back up to speed. And Atkins said the entire ordeal has been a learning experience.
"One lesson is that paper is a good thing," Atkins said.
Atkins said the data verification process should be completely up to speed in about four weeks.