Title Guaranty of Hawai'i helped create a computer software program for the state Bureau of Conveyances that gives title companies better access to scanned documents in the bureau's new recording system.

The software was installed without a contract, according to state and title company officials. The bureau also has yet to increase its fees for the improved access, meaning the state may be getting less revenue than it should for the service.

A state House and Senate committee investigating mismanagement at the bureau yesterday asked a retired auditor with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, which oversees the bureau, whether it is typical for private companies to write department software without a contract.

"I hope it's not typical, no," said Leroy Taira, an auditor who reviewed computer access at the bureau last year. "In my mind, it shouldn't happen like that."

The committee is investigating whether there were any security breaches at the bureau, which records real estate transactions, and whether some title companies received preferential treatment from bureau workers.

The state attorney general's office and the state Ethics Commission are conducting separate inquiries.

Taira said he had spoken with the attorney general's office and an investigator for the Ethics Commission.

Taira explained that the bureau's new system eliminates the need for title companies and the public to maintain a microfilm library and separate data file to view land records. The new system involves scanning the documents and providing related indexes.

But the bureau, according to state and title company officials, had been inconsistent in making the scanned documents available and is consistently behind on indexing.

Title Guaranty offered the software program so title companies and others could get immediate access to the scanned documents which, without indexing, are similar to sorting through a book with no table of contents or chapters.

Title Guaranty has its own indexing system and other title companies use a shared index, so they do not have to wait for the bureau to index.

"Title Guaranty shared its technological expertise with the bureau in order to improve the efficiency of the bureau's system and to enable all of the users of the server — all title companies, attorneys, Realtors, financial institutions and the members of the general public — to gain consistent and timely access to the images of the recorded documents," the company said in a statement. "These images became available to all users of the system simultaneously."

Taira also told the committee yesterday that the bureau was expected to charge more money to access the new system but had not updated its fee schedule.

He said title companies and others were being charged the $150 monthly rate, plus computer minutes, for retrieval and printing of land court certificates of title instead of being billed for better access under the new system.

Taira said he could not estimate how much money the state could be losing out on.

Carl Watanabe, the bureau's registrar, said the bureau approved the software and provided the service without the new fee schedule because bureau delays could have caused problems within the title insurance industry. "We basically put the cart before the horse," he said.

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com.