5/7/2020 Update:

California Executive Order pertaining to delinquent taxes

Pursuant to an executive order by the Governor of California, tax penalty provisions, including penalties, costs, or interest for the failure to pay taxes on property on the secured or unsecured roll, or to pay a supplemental bill, is suspended until May 6, 2021.  There are important qualifications for relief, including:

• The taxes owed on the property cannot have been delinquent prior to March 4, 2020
• Property must be either residential real property occupied by the taxpayer, or a real property owned and operated by a taxpayer that qualifies as a small business under the Small Business Administration’s Regulations
• The taxpayer must file a claim for relief in a timely fashion, in a manner to be prescribed by the tax collector, and must demonstrate economic hardship or was otherwise unable to tender payment of taxes in a timely fashion due to the COVID-19 pandemic, or any local, state, or federal government response to COVID-19.
• The suspension of penalties does not apply to any taxes paid through an impound account.

See the full text of the Executive Order here:

https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/5.6.20-EO-N-61-20-text.pdf

3/18/2020 Update:

ALTA is maintaining a list of county closures and recording delays at https://www.alta.org/news/news.cfm?20200316-ALTA-Response-to-COVID-19.  Click on the List of County Office Closures.

We encourage everyone to keep ALTA up to date with updated information so that the industry as a whole has access to the latest information.

COVID-19 Update

The news surrounding the COVID-19 virus is evolving so quickly that it’s difficult to keep up with.  We’ll be sharing news of closures or service issues as we become aware of them.

As of Monday, March 16^th, the bay area counties in California have announced a “shelter in place” for all residents in San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda, lasting for at least three weeks through April 7.  Additionally, Los Angeles and Orange County courts have  announced closures.  We anticipate seeing additional closures throughout California, and to potentially start seeing closures in Arizona and Nevada. 

The California closures will have the greatest effect on our court operations.  While we will still be able to do some research in the courts, case retrievals in many counties will be delayed until the courts are operational again.  Lien searches are not affected at this time.

Our title operations have no disruption at this time.  Arizona Research uses a variety of data sources in its title operations, and can still complete most searches even when counties are closed.  However, we anticipate that some older searches that require in-county searching will become delayed, and that we will start seeing lengthening effective dates.  As always, we will notify you on a per-order basis if anything should be delayed.

We are seeing a large increase in our title operations volume, and are ramping up our operations to accommodate.  We are also taking steps to insure that we don’t have a disruption in our operations.  At this time, the best way to reach out to us is by email at orders@azretrieval.com.  Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have concerns.

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