Why Online Public Records Are Usually Not Free

You've probably heard the phrase "public records," but do you know what it means? Generally speaking public records are those records that the public can access without restriction (mostly). The disclosure is because the records were made open voluntarily, or because some government transactions or archives require this to be the case. Most of these records have personal or even private information within.

Government agencies keep these documents at all levels (from the national or federal level down through state and local/county). They are all supposed to be free, since they are disclosed for the purposes of public access.

You have the right to access these records. Go to the agency in question, request the record you want, and wait for the response. In many cases the record will be found and you can have the information. In some cases you may be asked for a small fee, which will cover technical expenses.

How come some online sites charge more than a nominal fee, then, if these records are supposed to be free? Well, the answer is actually more than one answer. Different companies have different reasons.

First, some of these sites have paid the government to get the documents. They then charge you to cover their own costs.

On some other sites, the document is free but the search service isn't. It costs a good bit of money to maintain a huge, complex database for you to search.

Suppose you need the information contained in a public record, but you don't have a way to pay for the record. Don't panic! You can always access public records for free online. Go to a major search engine, and search "public record access free sites."

You can also find websites to government agencies that allow free online access to records. Some other sites maintain databases of free records. These are generally smaller though than the sites that will charge you.