Lake County will be the 44th of Ohio’s 88 counties to update recording fees, changing from $34 to $39 as of Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14. The Ohio Legislature’s passage of Senate Bill 94 added a $5 Recorder Document Preservation Surcharge to each county’s recording fees services schedule. The new law also mandates that counties digitize their records from Jan. 1, 1980, and have them electronically accessible through a cybersecure website, in addition to other changes, according to a news release. The law went into effect Oct. 24. Recorder budget allocations for 2025 were a major factor in the timing of the recording fee change for Lake County, the release stated. Recorder Becky Lynch emphasized that the county will comply with the requirements of the new law taking into consideration guidance from the Ohio Recorder Association and making the change to  recording fees accordingly. “The Lake County Real Estate market will be enhanced by the modernization efforts of this new law; we appreciate the Ohio Legislature’s support of our County Recorder services,” Lynch stated in the release. “We believe that we can achieve our goals to keep daily recordings on-time, preserve and maintain important land records and continue to balance department needs together with our great Lake County team.” New Lake County Recorder land records are digitized each day, while historic records have been scanned, indexed and digitized from 1985. Counties are required to reach the same digitization level of having records accessible digitally from Jan. 1, 1980, to today, in progress by June 30, 2026.