STAND. COM. REP. NO. 214

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 522

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fifth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2009

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Judiciary and Government Operations and Commerce and Consumer Protection, to which was referred S.B. No. 522 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO LAND COURT,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to require the assistant registrar of land court to electronically transmit to the Honolulu real property assessment administrator an index of all deeds and other writs that have been filed or recorded each week relating to the registered land in all the counties.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Honolulu Real Property Assessment Administrator, Hawaii County Finance Department, Maui Department of Finance, and one individual.  Testimony in opposition was received from the Department of Land and Natural Resources.  Written testimony presented to the Committees may be reviewed on the Legislature's website.

     Your Committees find that this measure would enable the counties to promptly track property ownership, encumbrances, restrictions, uses, and sales prices of real property for the purposes of determining more accurate real property tax assessments.

     Testimony on this measure indicated that the Department of Land and Natural Resources is presently working with the counties to resolve the problem addressed by this measure.  Therefore, this measure codifies in statute the current procedural practice.

     Your Committees note the concern of the Department of Land and Natural Resources relating to the ten day time limit for providing the image and index of instruments, which does not account for delays due to electronic malfunction.  Therefore, your Committees have amended this measure to allow for a time limit as soon as possible after the ten days if unforeseen technical malfunctions occur.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Judiciary and Government Operations and Commerce and Consumer Protection that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 522, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 522, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Judiciary and Government Operations and Commerce and Consumer Protection,

____________________________ ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair

____________________________ BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair