Bulletin: DC2023001

Dear Associates:

Please be advised that DC Superior Court’s new online case search system, “The Odyssey Portal” may produce inaccurate results when trying to utilize the system. The cases located in EAccess (DC Superior Court's old system) for the Civil, Probate and Tax Divisions stopped being updated with new information as of October 31, 2022. Furthermore, after October 31, 2022, no new cases (for these divisions) were filed in EAccess, and they were instead filed in “Odyssey." Therefore, in addition to using EAccess for cases initiated before October 31, 2022, “Odyssey“ must also be searched for any information filed in those cases post October 31, 2022, and any new case filed November 1, 2022, or later. When searching in “Odyssey,” the Superior Court of the District of Columbia has recommended using the advanced filtering/ wildcard options to improve search results. You may also contact the respective clerk’s office to verify your search results until the search engine issue is resolved. The court has stated that they will inform the public when the issue has been resolved.

Records found under EAccess are not available in the new “Odyssey Portal” and any suit involving an entity which starts with a numeral, such as 123 Main Street, LLC, are especially difficult to locate in the “Odyssey Portal.” Due to these issues, it is difficult to properly check individuals or entities for pending cases and/or final judgments.

Because the information contained in the DC Superior Court’s online case search system has been deemed unreliable, it is now necessary for every agent to obtain an Owner’s Affidavit for every transaction. This affidavit asks the owner to certify that there are no pending cases and/or final judgments against the subject property other than those disclosed on the title commitment or preliminary report.

To access this affidavit, please follow the below link to the affidavit in Virtual Underwriter.

https://www.virtualunderwriter.com/en/forms/2021-9/stg-owner-s-affidavit-and-indemnity.html

If you have any questions relating to this or other bulletins, please contact a Stewart Title Guaranty Company underwriter.

For on-line viewing of this and other bulletins, please log onto www.vuwriter.com.