What recording fee could a Kentucky county clerk charge when a tax delinquency certificate was resold?

Plain-English summary

Jefferson County Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw asked what fee applied when a purchaser of a delinquent property-tax certificate assigned it to another buyer. The Kentucky Attorney General distinguished that later transfer from the first sale and assignment of a certificate. In 2012, the first assignment drew a $27 fee under KRS 64.012(33), while a later assignment followed the general land-records procedure and drew the $12 fee in KRS 64.012(1)(a).

The AG also addressed longer and bundled filings. Each page beyond the first three added $3. If a single instrument reassigned several certificates, the clerk received one $12 recording fee for the instrument and $4 for each affected certificate beyond the first, as well as any excess-page fee.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2012. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Historical summary

County clerks recording a later assignment

The opinion read KRS 134.126(6) as directing subsequent actions on a certificate into the general land-records rules. It applied the $12 recording fee to an assignment from an initial third-party purchaser to a later purchaser. The $27 fee applied to the initial assignment and encumbrance, when the clerk had additional payment, reporting, recording, and indexing tasks.

Purchasers filing one instrument for multiple certificates

The AG treated the instrument, rather than each reassigned certificate, as the basis for the $12 recording fee. It added $4 for each additional reference to a certificate affected by the same instrument. A filing over three pages also incurred $3 for each extra page under the statute quoted in the opinion.

Common questions

Did a later purchaser's assignment cost the same $27 as the initial assignment?

No. The AG said the $27 fee attached to the initial assignment and encumbrance; a later assignment used the general $12 land-records fee under the 2012 statute.

What if the reassignment document exceeded three pages?

The opinion applied an additional $3 for each page beyond three.

Could one document reassign multiple delinquent-tax certificates?

The AG discussed that “cluster technique” and said one instrument could carry multiple reassignments. The fee was $12 for the instrument, plus $4 for each certificate beyond the first and any excess-page charge.

Why did the initial transfer cost more?

The opinion identified extra duties on the first transfer, including receiving and recording payment, reporting and allocating it, preparing and recording the encumbrance, and indexing the assignment. For a later transfer, the clerk recorded the privately prepared instrument and noted the assignment in the relevant records.

Background and statutory framework

KRS 134.126(5)(b) governed the first assignment of a certificate after payment by a third party. KRS 64.012(33) set the initial assignment and encumbrance fee. KRS 134.126(6) put subsequent assignments under the general laws for land records, which led the AG to KRS 64.012(1)(a). The opinion also discussed older AG opinions about the filing of multiple assignments through one instrument, then applied the additional-reference fee in the version of KRS 64.012 before it.

Citations and references

• KRS 134.126(5)(b), KRS 134.126(6), and KRS 134.126(7): initial and subsequent certificate assignments.
• KRS 64.012(33): initial assignment and encumbrance fee.
• KRS 64.012(1)(a): general recording, excess-page, and additional-reference fees.

Source

• Landing page: https://kdla.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_ca7743c0-d24f-4d85-ae96-c6da15a2fa2b/
• Original PDF: https://kdla.access.preservica.com/download/file/IO_ca7743c0-d24f-4d85-ae96-c6da15a2fa2b

Original opinion text

OAG 12-002
February 29, 2012
Subject:

Fee of county clerk for third-party assignment of certificate of delinquency

Requested by:

Bobbie Holsclaw
Jefferson County Clerk

Written by:

James M. Herrick
Assistant Attorney General

Syllabus:

The proper fee of the county clerk for recording a reassignment of a certificate of delinquency from a third-party purchaser to a subsequent purchaser is the general fee of $12.00 provided in KRS 64.012(1) (a).

Statutes construed:
OAG’s cited:

KRS 64.012, KRS 134.126

OAG 72-152, OAG 79-313, OAG 82-432, OAG 84-197,
OAG 84-260

Opinion of the Attorney General
KRS 134.010(1) defines a certificate of delinquency as “a tax
claim on real property for taxes that [r]emains unpaid” three months
and fifteen days after the due date and “[h]as been filed with the
county clerk pursuant to KRS 134.122.” Pursuant to KRS 134.128, the
county clerk may sell certificates of delinquency to third-party purchasers, who may then assign the certificates to others under KRS 134.126(7). The clerk is to record the initial assignment to the third-

OAG 12-002
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party purchaser pursuant to KRS 134.126(5)(b). Subsequent assignments are to be recorded pursuant to KRS 134.126(7). Jefferson County Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw has requested an opinion on the following question: “What is the proper fee for a county clerk to charge a [third] party buyer of a certificate of delinquency to assign that instrument to a subsequent purchaser?” There being no prior opinions or published cases on the issue, we begin with the plain language of the statutes. Cf. OAG 79-313. KRS 134.126(5)(b) states as follows: If payment in full is made by a person other than the person primarily liable on the certificate, the person making the payment may request that the payment be treated as an assignment. Upon such request, the county clerk shall: 1. Note the assignment on the certificate of delinquency[;] 2. Record the encumbrance represented by the certificate of delinquency in the same manner as a notice of lis pendens; and 3. Include as part of the encumbrance recording the information required by KRS 134.490(3)(f) [i.e., the name, address and telephone number of the third-party purchaser]. For recording the assignment and encumbrance, the county clerk shall receive the fee provided in KRS 64.012. (Emphasis added.) KRS 64.012(33) specifically provides that the county clerk shall receive a fee of $27.00 for “[n]oting the assignment of a certificate of delinquency and recording and indexing the encumbrance under KRS 134.126 or 134.127.” Meanwhile, KRS 134.126(6) states: After the initial recording of an assignment of a certificate of delinquency … as provided in subsection (5)(b) of this

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section, all subsequent actions relating to that certificate of
delinquency …, including assignments and releases shall
be made in accordance with the general laws and procedures governing land records, except the additional information required by KRS 134.490(3)(f) shall be included. The applicable fees established by KRS 64.012 shall apply. (Emphasis added.) KRS 64.012(1)(a), in pertinent part, provides the following fees for recording and indexing of a:

4. Deed of assignment;
   ….
5. Release of any recorded encumbrance other than state
   liens;
   ….
6. Recording with statutory authority for which no specific fee is set, except a military discharge; and
7. Filing with statutory authority for which no specific fee
   is set.
   For all items in this subsection if the entire thereof does not
   exceed
   three
   (3)
   pages
   ….
   ………………………………………………
   $12.00
   And, for all items in this subsection exceeding three (3)
   pages,
   for
   each
   additional
   page
   ……………………………………………
   $3.00
   And, for all items in this subsection for each additional reference
   relating
   to
   same
   instrument
   ………………………………………
   $4.00
   The question, therefore, is whether the subsequent reassignment of a
   certificate of delinquency from the initial third-party purchaser to a
   subsequent third-party purchaser entitles the county clerk to the
   $27.00 fee provided in KRS 64.012(33), or only to the $12.00 general
   fee provided in KRS 64.012(1)(a).
   We start from the premise that the law should be construed so as
   to give effect to all parts of a statute whenever possible. George v.

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Scent, 346 S.W.2d 784, 789 (Ky. 1961). “All statutes are presumed to
be enacted for the furtherance of a purpose on the part of the legislature and should be construed so as to accomplish that end rather than to render them nugatory.” Com. ex rel. Martin v. Tom Moore Distillery Co., 287 Ky. 125, 152 S.W.2d 962, 967 (1939). If the language in KRS 134.126(6), stating that after an initial assignment “all subsequent actions relating to that certificate of delinquency[,] including assignments[,] shall be made in accordance with the general laws and procedures governing land records,” is to be given any meaningful effect, we must recognize that a subsequent assignment is to be treated differently from an initial assignment. Under the “general law” embodied in KRS 64.012(1)(a), the clerk’s fee for filing a subsequent assignment of a certificate of delinquency is $12.00, with an additional $3.00 for each page in excess of three. There is no inequity in the law’s allowing the county clerk a lesser fee for recording a subsequent assignment of a certificate of delinquency than for the initial assignment, since more duties are required of the clerk in the case of an initial assignment. When a certificate of delinquency is first sold to a third-party purchaser, the county clerk must receive and record the payment (KRS 134.126(1)(a)); issue a receipt (KRS 134.126(2)); report to various public officials (KRS 134.126(3)) and allocate the portions of the payment due to each entity (KRS 134.126(4)); note the payment on the certificate along with the purchaser’s name and address (KRS 134.126(5)(a)); note the assignment on the certificate (KRS 134.126(5)(b)(1)); prepare and record the instrument (KRS 134.126(5)(b)(2)), including the name, address, and phone number of the purchaser (KRS 134.126(5)(b)(3)); and index the assignment (KRS 382.290(5)). By contrast, for a subsequent assignment by the third-party purchaser under KRS 134.126(6) pursuant to “the general laws and procedures governing land records,” the county clerk is only required to record the privately prepared instrument (KRS 382.110); note the assignment on the certificate of delinquency with the name, address, and phone number of the assignee (KRS 134.126(6)); and note the assign-

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ment in the filing system (KRS 382.290(5)). Accordingly, both the letter of the law and the realities of the transaction dictate that the
$12.00 fee provided in KRS 64.012(1)(a) should apply to a subsequent
assignment from one third-party purchaser to another.
Finally, it is appropriate that in the interest of clarity we address
the so-called “cluster technique,” by which multiple certificates of
delinquency are reassigned through a single instrument filed with the
county clerk. The Attorney General last spoke to this issue in 1984 in
the context of what was then the $5.00 fee for recording mortgage assignments: Unfortunately, KRS 64.012 does not speak in terms of a fee for each mortgage effectively assigned in one instrument. In other words, it does not address the cluster technique, which is apparently employed as an economy in language and documents. The fee schedule under KRS 64.012, as applies to an assignment of real estate mortgages, is stated in language that envisions one single document of assignment, regardless of the multiplicity of assignments within the one document. As we said in OAG 82-432, … if the General Assembly had intended to prohibit “clustering” in such assignments, it could have easily said so by statute. The history of KRS 64.012 reflects that the fee schedule for the county clerks is constructed around a specific fee for the filing of a particular document, i.e., the singular is used. Thus the fee schedule does not deal specifically with the multiple transaction-within-one-document concept. As we wrote in OAG 72-152, … any inequity which may arise from this clustered document approach will have to be remedied by the General Assembly. OAG 84-197. In OAG 84-260, this office clarified that in the case of such multiple assignments, the clerk should be entitled to an additional
$2.50 “for making marginal notations on each real estate mortgage affected.”

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The “cluster technique” was codified by subsequent revisions to
KRS 64.012, as was the remedy for the potential fee inequities we had
examined in OAG 84-197. Under the current version of the statute, the
clerk’s additional fee is $4.00 “for each additional reference relating to
[the] same instrument.”
Therefore, it is our opinion that the county clerk is entitled to a
$12.00 fee for recording a subsequent reassignment of a certificate of
delinquency by a third-party purchaser, with an additional $3.00 for
each page in excess of three. For an instrument containing subsequent reassignments of multiple certificates of delinquency, the clerk is entitled to $12.00 for recording the instrument, with an additional
$3.00 for each page in excess of three and an additional $4.00 for noting the reassignment on each affected certificate in excess of one.

Jack Conway
Attorney General

James M. Herrick
Assistant Attorney General