The official paper trail for a home purchase in Minnesota can’t be just paper any more. One required record goes all-digital on Oct. 1. In fact, courthouses won’t even accept a Certificate of Real Estate Value on paper, the state Department of Revenue is telling us.
Since 1978, anyone buying $1,000 or more worth of property in Minnesota has been required to submit the 4-part CRV form to a county courthouse or City Hall. Those purchase reports of houses, land and other real estate are important to state and local governments for determining property taxes, among other uses. About 145,000 CRVs are filed each year, according to DOR.
The state tax collectors have been working for years to convert the system to electronic submission for efficiency. A new “eCRV” became available in all counties in December 2011, but property buyers still could file paper copies, even if they merely duplicated the electronic version.
Now, paper has been declared obsolete. The eCRV is the sole way to submit the report for any sales made on or after Oct. 1, DOR says. For more information and how-to instructions, buyers can check the DOR Web site at http://www.revenue.state.mn.us/CRV/Pages/eCRV.aspx
Among its effects, the electronic filing has made a centralized database of real estate information available to the public.
DOR wasn’t the only group funding the conversion. Minnesota’s counties contributed, based on their 2005 filings of CRVs, and the state’s real estate industry chipped in $25,000 to help with the costs.