La Salle County seeks higher fees for time spent on time share documents

The La Salle County Board hired a company to study the number of hours it takes the recorder’s office to process time share documents in order to raise the fees on them.

Because of a predictable fee structure put in place, these documents have fees of $68 for mortgages and $71 for deeds, despite the number of hours it takes the recorder’s office to process them.

A study is required by Illinois state statute to raise these fees. In order to meet that requirement, the La Salle County Board has hired MGT Consulting, LLC for no more than $5,000 to conduct the study.

La Salle County Recorder Karen Friestad-Miller said in 2020, the county recorded 2,414 time share documents and this year the county has already processed 10,228 time share documents.

Before the predictable fees structure was put in place in 2018, the county charged a flat amount for the first four pages of these documents, then added $1 per page. These would cost $10,000 or so, but now the county must charge $58 for them.

Miller said the recorder’s office has four full-time clerks that take turns filing the documents, which sometimes take a couple of weeks to record.

“$68 for a deed, and $71 for a mortgage is way out of line,” Miller said.

Miller said if a document has more than five property tax PIN numbers the county can charge more, but the time share resorts operated under one property tax number.

“This particular document has 850 units,” Miller said holding up an example document for the La Salle County Board. “Because it has one property tax number, it falls into a standard document.”

Miller also said if the recorder’s office is given an assignment on a time share document, it can charge a non-standard fee. These assignments sometimes end up with $10,000 to $14,000 fees, she said.

La Salle County Attorney Patrick Herrmann said it is unfair to taxpayers to continue the fee structure any longer the way it is.

County board members expressed their concern the county has to spend $5,000 on a study for something the recorder’s office already can identify.