STAND. COM. REP. NO. 266

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 1130

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fifth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2009

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection, to which was referred S.B. No. 1130 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE BUREAU OF CONVEYANCES,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to allow a party seeking to record a judgment with the Bureau of Conveyances to redact the first five digits of any Social Security Numbers that may be included on the judgment. 

     Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Collection Law Section of the Hawaii State Bar Association.  Written testimony presented to the Committee may be reviewed on the Legislature's website.

     Your Committee finds that the law pertaining to filings in the Bureau of Conveyances is incongruent with the documentary rules and practices of the Judiciary.  Many judicial orders and judgments contain the parties' full Social Security numbers as a means of identification.  However, the current law prohibits the Registrar of the Bureau of Conveyances from accepting a document that contains a full Social Security number.  Your Committee finds that an unintended consequence of the Legislature's action to protect citizens' privacy by allowing only the last four digits of a person's Social Security number to be included in documents registered or recorded with the Bureau of Conveyances is to preclude the acceptance of some court orders by the Bureau of Conveyances. 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by adding a section to maintain consistent authority for documents filed in both the Land Court and the Regular System at the Bureau of Conveyances.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1130, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1130, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Government Operations.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection,

____________________________

ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair