Registries of deeds throughout Massachusetts, including the Middlesex Southern District Registry of Deeds in Cambridge, are working to reduce the amount of time customers need to spend in line.

Not too long ago, the state’s registries of deeds offices were nearly drowning in a sea of backed-up paperwork and mail as the number of mortgage refinancings and home sales transactions skyrocketed.

The registries struggled to keep up with hundreds of thousands of documents that flowed into their offices even as their budgets were being slashed. Now, after a drop-off in real estate transactions, various technological improvements, and with more flexibility in their budgets, the registries seem to be climbing out of the backlog.

Tom Ryan, the first assistant register for the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds in Boston, said the slowdown in the real estate market coupled with the additional revenue that Secretary of State William Galvin has provided to address the backlogs have helped.

“I think there has been an improvement. One of the principal reasons is that the market has slowed down in the last six to nine months, so we’re not getting the overwhelming volume that we had been facing continuously for the last two years,” said Ryan.

At the Middlesex Southern District Registry of Deeds in Cambridge, the busiest registry office in the state, customers no longer have to wait for hours to have a document recorded.

“We’re back to normal,” said Eugene C. Brune, the register for Middlesex South. “We don’t have long lines like we used to.”

Part of the reason for the recovery is that the Middlesex registry in Cambridge had a new computer system installed in mid-January. Costing over $2 million, the more efficient computer system has helped speed up the processing of paperwork.

In addition, Brune said the secretary of state’s office gave him permission to tap into a technology fund to pay employees to work overtime and to pay an outside company to scan documents. Money flowing into the tech fund comes from a $5 surcharge consumers pay for each document that is recorded. The state Legislature approved the surcharge and increased the fees that consumers are charged to record everything from a deed to a mortgage last year.

“That $5 tech fee is extremely important because that allows registries to continue to automate and streamline our [technology],” said Ryan.

The Boston registry, which handled over 254,000 documents last year on a budget of $2 million but generated $51 million in revenue for the state, still has not had its computer system upgraded, according to Ryan. But the registry was able to purchase five new scanners and use state consultants and computer experts to scan 10 years’ worth of images. Those images can be viewed on the registry’s Web site.

The registry is also working on mail backups and is aiming to return documents – including homestead declarations, mortgages, deeds and discharges – within two months.

Still Behind

Staffing at the Boston registry has remained flat, according to Ryan. “We haven’t expanded staff,” he said. “That was a problem when we were really busy. Now that the refinancing boom has slowed, I don’t think staffing is the problem it was two years ago.”

Meanwhile, the Cambridge registry is caught up with all the imaging, and incoming and outgoing mail associated with recorded land. At one point, the registry – which was estimated to pull in $70 million and record 420,000 documents last year – was so backed up it had to give color-coded numbers to customers waiting in line.

Despite the improvements, the registry is still behind in writing certificates for registered land and is also about seven months behind in recording discharges for registered land, said Brune. Only about 15 percent of the documents the registry handles are for registered land, while the remaining are for recorded land, explained Brune.

Staffing also remains an issue at the Middlesex Southern District Registry. The registry has lost 15 full-time employees since 2001 that it hasn’t been able to replace.

“If we have another onslaught of refinancing as we did in 2002 and 2003, no matter that I’m caught up, I would still have the same problems as long as I don’t have proper staffing for this registry,” said Brune.

The record volume of real estate transactions in the last two years has caused problems for several of the eight county-run registries as well.

The Norfolk County Registry of Deeds, for example, had to handle more than 330,000 recordings last fiscal year, up from about 255,000 in 2002. The registry faced delays with mail, but with the installation of a new computer system last July, some of the delays have been alleviated.

Among the improvements at the registry is a redesigned Web site that enables customers to search online for title and land records. The office also added 30 computers in the public access area that customers can use and opened a customer service center a month ago.

“That modernization initiative and effort has really improved the operation of the Norfolk County Registry of Deeds,” said William O’Donnell, Norfolk County’s register. “Certainly, the Norfolk County Registry of Deeds in the less than two years that I’ve been register has been modernized and we’re working to make it financially sound and user-friendly.”

Aglaia Pikounis may be reached at apikounis@thewarrengroup.com.