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Looking for court records information? Now it's free

By TIMES STAFF
Published January 22, 2007

INVERNESS - Checking court records just got a whole lot easier - and cheaper.

Starting today, access to the "court records" section of the clerk's office Web site is free. Before, users paid a $50 start fee and then an additional monthly fee.

Go to www.clerk.citrus.fl.us and click on "court records" in the right column.

From there, you can search for information about criminal cases, civil matters, traffic tickets, probate files and a host of other categories. Users can search by name, date, type of case and so on.

Actual documents can't be accessed online. So, for example, you can see that a lawsuit was filed on a certain date, but you can't read the suit.

Some cases aren't accessible at all: cases that the court has sealed or expunged, juvenile cases, adoption files and mental health files.

Free access remains for another key part of the clerks' Web site: official records. That's where you can search for recorded documents such as deeds, judgments, court orders and liens.

Unlike court records, the official records section usually allows users to see the actual document that was recorded.

Subscribers who pay the monthly fee still have access to some extra filings in official records: certain documents recorded after June 2002 in family law and probate cases.

[Last modified January 22, 2007, 07:05:39]