After reading the September 24, 2009 Boston Globe story about the growing tendency of our government to resist complying with public records laws by charging inflated and sometimes astronomical fees for “public” information, I thought it might be nice to write a bit about our public records that are specifically maintained for public access.

My “day job” is as a title examiner, and so I work with these some of records every day. Most of my work is in the county registries of deeds, but I also use probate, divorce, bankruptcy, business filing, tax assessor’s, marriage, birth and death records. All of these records are fairly easily and inexpensively available.

What can you learn from all this? What I do is generally to make sure that the people selling you that house and land actually own it, and who else has what rights to it, financially and otherwise.

What else can you do with this stuff? Historical and genealogical research. Learn how cities and neighborhoods developed, or the history of the family homestead. Want to know how much the house next door sold for? You can find out.

Business being kind of slow these days, I got wondering what the highest paid employee in Cambridge paid for his house. It’s a nice house in Lowell, shown above (photo courtesy of City of Lowell Assessor's Office website), purchased in 2003 for $200,000, now assessed for $552,300. I wonder what a new oversized cape on a 13,000 square foot lot would be worth in Cambridge. Even with our moderate taxes, he’d be paying a lot more if he lived here.

What about our city councillors? They are supposed to live in the city, so if they own property, it should be easy to find out.

Mayor Simmons does not appear to own her home. Her address is listed as 188 Harvard St, an 8 unit apartment building owned by Cambridge Community Housing Development Inc. c/o Homeowner’s Rehab Inc. These two companies develop and manage affordable housing and do a fair amount of business with the city. According to the Better Business Bureau’s website, Homeowner’s Rehab has never responded to its request for info on its charitable activities. ”While participation in the Eastern Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont BBB’s charity review efforts is voluntary, the Eastern Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont BBB believes that failure to participate may demonstrate a lack of commitment to transparency.”

The rest of the councillors do appear to own their own homes. Councillor Davis has owned a two family on Chestnut Street since 1973, when she purchased it for $26,000. Those were the days. It has appreciated nicely with the rest of the city and is now assessed for $758,800.

Councillor Kelley and his spouse bought their North Cambridge two family in 1995 for $225,000. It’s now assessed for $572,700.

Councillor Reeves’s Harvard Street condo has the highest assessed value among the nine, coming in at $1,189,300.

Councillor Seidel and his wife own 48 Maple Avenue, Unit 2, which is assessed at $454,000, but was bought in 2003 for $466,000.

Councillor Maher and a partner own 118 Appleton Street. Purchased with a third person in 1986 for $280,000, it is currently assessed at $930,900.

Councillor Ward and his wife own a two family at 372 Broadway. They paid $280,000 in 1989 and the city assesses it for $887,400.

Councillor Toomey owns a three family and a single on Sixth Street with a combined assessment of $1,331,500.

Councillor Decker also owns two properties. She purchased 42 Linnaean Street, Unit 42-3 in 2003 for $256,000, and it is currently assessed for $257,000. Her current residence at 61 Walden Street, Unit 61 was conveyed to her in 2006 by a deed from First Camreal Corp., Trustee of 63 Walden Street Trust, for nominal consideration. Now that is interesting. Nominal consideration means no money. Who is First Camreal Corp.? The deed is signed by Muireann Glenmullen, President, and convicted real estate felon and former anti-tenant city councillor William H. Walsh, Treasurer. A certificate recorded with the deed lists the officers and directors as Muireann Glenmullen, William H. Walsh, and Raymond Bandar. How much did First Camreal pay for the property? They acquired it by a deed recorded in 2005 from Raymond Bandar for “less than $100.00”. That also means no money. Mr. Bandar bought the entire property a few months earlier for $1,050,000. How much was this gift worth? A City of Cambridge municipal lien certificate recorded with the deed has the assessed value at $707,100. Current assessment data lists the value at $571,600. Another unit in the condo that has a 27% interest sold for $715,000 about a year before, and that would give Ms. Decker’s unit at 20% a rough value of $530,000.

As interesting as this is, the financing is also curious. She gave a first mortgage to Cambridge Savings Bank for $350,000. A second mortgage for $200,000 to First Camreal Corp., Trustee of 63 Walden Street Trust, was also written on this unit at that time, but was then secured by the Linnaean Street unit instead. Why do I think that? Because:

1) The mortgage, registered as Document No. 1432507 at the Middlesex South Registry District of the Land Court, says “[s]ubject to a prior mortgage to Cambridge Savings Bank in the original principal amount of $350,000.00 dated December 26, 2006 and recorded with the Middlesex South District Registry of Deeds herewith.”

2) The locus (subject property) address of 61 Walden Street, Cambridge, MA was scratched out in the margin of the mortgage and replaced with the Linnaean Street address. A mortgage can only be subordinated to another if they are both secured by the same property.

3) It is hard to see that there could have been sufficient equity in the Linnaean Street unit to justify the loan, since the two mortgages already encumbering it add up to $293,200, minus whatever she had paid down on the first mortgage and whatever part of the $50,000 equity line of credit she hadn’t used.

It does appear, however, that Camreal, through this $200,000 mortgage, was being paid that amount of money plus interest for the Walden Street unit. So maybe the gift was only worth between $300,000 and $500,000. If this is the case, then there should have been a documentary stamp excise tax of $912 paid at the time of the transaction. No such tax was paid, at least according to the deed.

Altogether, this is one of the more curious real estate transactions I have run across in a decade of doing this work.

Work at the registry has been slow. I think I have too much time on my hands.