Who decides who gets a key to the register of deeds' office, the register of deeds or the county board of commissioners?
Plain-English summary
The Register of Deeds in Snow Hill, NC, asked the AG a small but important administrative-control question. Who has the authority to decide who holds keys to the register of deeds' office? The county board of commissioners, which is responsible for county property generally? Or the register of deeds, who is the elected official whose books and records the office holds?
The AG said the register of deeds.
The answer turns on the interaction of two statutory regimes.
The county-property regime. G.S. 153A-169 makes the board of county commissioners responsible for supervising the maintenance, repair, and use of county property. The board has the authority to designate the location of county offices. This is broad-brush real-property authority: the board decides where the county offices are located, allocates space among them, manages building maintenance, and so on. Under that authority, the board could in principle decide which keys are needed for which doors as a building-management matter.
The register-of-deeds regime. Chapter 161 makes the register of deeds an elected public official with specific statutory duties, including the duty to safely keep the books and records filed in the office. G.S. 161-4 requires the register to post a bond, and that bond is conditioned on the safekeeping of the books and records "by the register of deeds and his assistant and deputy registers of deeds and the faithful discharge of his and their duties." The bond is the financial enforcement mechanism for the safekeeping obligation: if records are lost, damaged, or improperly disclosed because of inadequate control over the office, the bond pays out to compensate the harm.
The interaction. The AG resolved the apparent tension by reading the safekeeping-and-bond framework as overriding the general property-management framework. If the register of deeds is the one held legally and financially responsible for the safekeeping of the records, the register has to be the one who decides who can physically access the records. The county commissioners cannot retain key-distribution authority while leaving the register of deeds personally liable on the bond for safekeeping. The two cannot coexist coherently.
The AG's reasoning has a clean structural logic: liability follows control, or rather, control must accompany liability. The register is responsible; the register must have the means to discharge the responsibility. Key control is part of those means. Therefore, the register controls the keys.
The board of commissioners retained the rest of its G.S. 153A-169 authority. It still supervises building maintenance, designates office locations, manages the broader county property portfolio. But within the register of deeds' designated office space, key distribution and access control belong to the register.
Currency note
This opinion was issued in 1979. 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.
Chapter 161 (register of deeds) and Chapter 153A (county government) have been amended multiple times since 1979. The bond requirements in G.S. 161-4 and the office-control statutes governing public records have continued to develop. Modern register-of-deeds offices also have computer-system access-control questions (database credentials, e-recording portal access) that did not exist in 1979 but raise the same structural question about who controls access to the office's records. The principle that the register of deeds controls physical and electronic access to the office, because the register is bonded for safekeeping, would seem to generalize to those modern questions, but specific access-control issues today should be checked against the current statutes and any later AG opinions or court decisions.
Historical context: what the AG concluded
The opinion is short and direct, but it stakes out a clean principle worth understanding.
The separation-of-powers backdrop. North Carolina county government in 1979 was structured around a separation between the board of county commissioners (the general legislative and policy body) and a set of separately elected officials with specific statutory functions: the register of deeds, the sheriff, the clerk of superior court, the county treasurer (where the office existed), and others. The elected officials were not employees of the board; they were independent constitutional or statutory officers, accountable to the voters and answerable for specific statutory duties.
This structure created predictable boundary disputes. The board controlled the building, the budget, and many cross-departmental functions. The elected officials controlled the specific statutory duties of their offices and were personally accountable for performing those duties. When the two authorities overlapped, the question was which authority controlled within the contested area.
The G.S. 153A-169 framework. The general county-property authority is broad. The board supervises maintenance, repair, and use of county property; designates office locations; allocates space; and manages the broader physical plant of county government. Read in isolation, the statute would seem to give the board authority over all building-related matters, including key distribution.
The Chapter 161 framework. The register of deeds' authority is specific. The register is responsible for receiving and recording deeds, deeds of trust, plats, and various other documents; maintaining the office's books and records; and safekeeping all of the foregoing. The bond under G.S. 161-4 is the personal-liability enforcement mechanism for the safekeeping duty.
The AG's interpretive move. The opinion uses the safekeeping-and-bond framework as the controlling consideration. The AG's syllogism: (1) the register is legally and financially responsible for safekeeping the books and records; (2) safekeeping requires control over physical access to where the books and records are stored; (3) therefore the register must control physical access to the office; (4) controlling physical access means controlling who has keys; (5) the register controls the keys. The G.S. 153A-169 property-management authority of the board has to yield within the register's office because the statutory liability allocation does not work otherwise.
The implicit structural principle. What the opinion is really articulating is a principle about administrative control: where the General Assembly has assigned a specific responsibility (with personal bond liability) to a specific officer, the officer must have the operational means to discharge that responsibility. A general administrative authority (here, the board's property-management power) cannot be read to override the operational control the responsible officer needs. The principle is not unique to registers of deeds; it would generalize to other county elected officials whose statutory duties carry bond liability or other personal accountability.
Practical implications. Under this opinion, in 1979 a board of county commissioners could not require the register of deeds to give a master key to a county maintenance worker, to the county manager, or to any other person not authorized by the register. The board could require the register to grant access to the office for specific maintenance functions (cleaning, repairs) on a coordinated basis, but the register would still control the key list and the timing of access. After-hours access would be the register's decision. Emergency access (fire, flood) would require coordination with public-safety authorities but, again, the register's authorization would be the baseline.
For a Register of Deeds in 1979, the operational takeaways were several. First, you control who has keys. Document the key list, including assistants and deputies. Second, do not surrender keys to the board, the county manager, or any other county official simply on demand; the bond risk falls on you, and you need to be the one making access decisions. Third, build a coordination protocol with the board for legitimate cross-office needs (maintenance, after-hours emergencies) so the key-control authority does not become an obstruction to ordinary county operations. Fourth, if pressed by the board on this question, the 1979 AG opinion is the authority to cite.
Common questions
Who is the register of deeds?
A separately elected county official in North Carolina, responsible for recording deeds, deeds of trust, plats, marriage certificates, military discharges, and various other documents that the General Assembly has designated for the register's office. The register maintains the office's books and records for public access.
Why does the register of deeds have to be bonded?
Because the register is personally responsible for the safekeeping of all records filed in the office. If records are lost, damaged, or improperly disclosed and a party suffers financial harm as a result, the bond pays out to compensate the harm. The bond is the financial enforcement mechanism behind the safekeeping duty.
Doesn't the board of county commissioners own the building?
In a sense, yes. The board has general property-management authority under G.S. 153A-169, including authority to designate office locations and to supervise maintenance. The building belongs to the county, and the board manages the county's physical plant. But the operational control over the register of deeds' specific office space, including key control, belongs to the register, not the board.
Why does it matter who has keys?
Because anyone with a key can enter the office unobserved and gain access to the records. If records are tampered with, removed, or improperly viewed, the question of who had access becomes a forensic question. The register, who is on the bond for safekeeping, has every incentive to keep the key list short and known. The bond would not function as a safeguard if anyone with general county-staff status could enter the office at will.
Can the board require the register to grant access for maintenance?
The opinion does not address this directly, but the practical answer is yes, on a coordinated basis. The register is responsible for safekeeping but not for actively obstructing legitimate county operations. The register would typically grant access for cleaning, repairs, and similar functions, with appropriate documentation and (where the records are particularly sensitive) supervision. The point of the AG opinion is that the register decides; the board cannot demand keys as a matter of right.
What if there is an emergency, like a fire or flood?
The opinion does not address emergency access. As a practical matter, public-safety responders (firefighters, police) have their own statutory access authorities for emergencies; the register's key control does not override emergency-response authorities. The register would typically be notified after the fact and would take steps to assess any record damage and document the response.
Does this opinion apply to other elected county officials?
The opinion is about the register of deeds specifically, but the structural principle generalizes. Any county elected official with statutory safekeeping duties (the sheriff for evidence, the clerk of superior court for court files, etc.) would have a similar argument that operational control over office access belongs to the official responsible for safekeeping. Each office would have its own statutory framework that would need its own analysis.
Does it matter who pays for the building?
The opinion does not turn on funding. The county pays for the building and the board manages the property under G.S. 153A-169. But payment and management of the physical structure do not include control over the contents of the offices within. The register of deeds' books and records are within the building but are within the register's safekeeping responsibility.
Background and statutory framework
The opinion sits at the intersection of county property law and the duties of a separately elected county official.
G.S. 153A-169. Part of the county government statutory framework. Requires the board of county commissioners to supervise the maintenance, repair, and use of county property. Includes authority to designate the location of county offices. This is the board's general property-management authority and the source of its broader oversight over the county's physical plant.
Chapter 161 (register of deeds). The statutory framework for the register of deeds office. Establishes the register as a separately elected county official, sets the duties of the office (recording deeds, deeds of trust, plats, marriage certificates, and various other documents), and requires safekeeping of all books and records filed in the office.
G.S. 161-4 (register of deeds bond). Requires the register of deeds to post a bond, "conditioned upon the safekeeping of the books and records by the register of deeds and his assistant and deputy registers of deeds and the faithful discharge of his and their duties." The bond is the financial enforcement mechanism for the safekeeping duty.
The interaction. The 1979 opinion resolves the apparent tension between the board's general property-management authority and the register's specific safekeeping duty in favor of the register, on the structural ground that the personal-liability allocation (the bond runs against the register, not the board) requires giving the register the operational control needed to discharge the duty. The board retains its broader county-property authority but does not control key distribution within the register's office.
Citations
- G.S. 153A-169 (board of county commissioners' authority to supervise maintenance, repair, and use of county property and to designate office locations)
- Chapter 161 (register of deeds statutory framework)
- G.S. 161-4 (register of deeds bond, conditioned on safekeeping of books and records by the register and his deputies)
Source
Original opinion text
Requested By: Lula Heath, Register of Deeds, Snow Hill, N.C.
Question: What person has the authority to determine who shall have keys to the office of the register of deeds?
Conclusion: Since the register of deeds is required to keep public records, and is required by law to be bonded for the safekeeping of the books and records, only the register of deeds has the authority to determine which persons shall have keys to his office and access thereto.
G.S. 153A-169 requires the board of county commissioners to supervise the maintenance, repair and use of county property. The board has the authority to designate the location of county offices.
However, the register of deeds is an elected public official and under Chapter 161 of the General Statutes is required to perform certain duties and he is responsible for the safekeeping of the books and records filed in the office.
The bond required by G.S. 161-4 is conditioned upon the safekeeping of the books and records by the register of deeds and his assistant and deputy registers of deeds and the faithful discharge of his and their duties.
Clearly, if the register of deeds did not have control of the keys to his office, there would be no way that he could be responsible for the safekeeping of the books and records and the entries made therein.
We conclude therefore, that the register of deeds determines who will have keys to his office.
Rufus L. Edmisten
Attorney General
James F. Bullock
Senior Deputy Attorney General