M E M O R A N D U M
To: Honorable Members of the Town Council
From: Debra E. Eastman, MMC
Date: November 20, 2019
Re: Adopting an updated fee schedule for lien searches
REQUEST
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A RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND TOWN COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF CUTLER BAY, FLORIDA, ADOPTING UPDATED LIEN SEARCH FEES; REPEALING RESOLUTION NO. 06-111; AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE.
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BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS
The Town of Cutler Bay (the "Town") receives multiple requests daily to research and provide, in writing, any liens on file with the Town regarding a parcel of property and folio number. Experience has shown, that often there were fines or outstanding alarm fees that had not risen to the level of a recorded lien but had been assessed against the property and remained unpaid. In the spirit of transparency, staff chose to include all information discovered at the time of research on the response. The practice has not only led to the collection of the revenue, but to a cleaner transfer of property between old and new owners.
Processing and research can be time consuming and often includes multiple departments. The purpose of charging a fee for the service is to recoup the cost of staff time and materials to provide the service. The fee schedule was originally set by Resolution 06-111 and adopted on November 15, 2006. Lien search fees in surrounding municipalities range from an amount similar to our current charge (in municipalities where the fee schedule has also not been updated for several years) to $145 for a regular search and $290 for a rush search. By setting the fees for lien searches at $100 for regular service and $200.00 for rush service, the Town will be able to recoup its time and costs in producing the lien search results.
RECOMMENDATION
It is recommended that the Town Council adopt the resolution setting the fee for regular service at one hundred dollars ($100.00) and the fee for a rush service at two hundred dollars ($200.00).
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