A scanned image of a historic land grant document from 1855.

Title and Land Records

Title and Land Records is part of the Bureau of Survey and Mapping within the Division of State Lands. The section:

• Provides presentation, reproduction, research and general administration of the land records of the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund (Governor and Cabinet).
• Allows the maintenance of existing records, processing of new incoming records, research and filling of orders relating to copies of the various records, such as the original survey field notes, plats and deeds, maintenance of the state-owned land inventory and public land inventory; processing of disclaimers, quitclaim deeds, filled land certificates, erosion line control applications and drafting of agenda items for the Board of Trustees.
• Determination of the Board of Trustees' ownership interest in environmental resource permit applications for projects within the State as well as conducting state land ownership research at the request of governmental entities, attorneys, corporations and the general public.

As the repository of state land records belonging to the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund, the Title and Land Records Section has a duty to protect the records comprising the inventory of these important documents pursuant to Chapter 119, Florida Statutes. Most records are searchable and accessible through the internet from the Board of Trustees Land Database System (BTLDS) at the following website:

 http://199.73.242.56/

A mapping component of BTLDS also provides a graphical depiction of parcel locations at the following website:

http://tlhdslweb.dep.state.fl.us/florida/flpro/

These documents are stored in a climate controlled vault. Access to the vault is limited to public access to assure protection of documents, as well as to allow staff to perform daily research duties. Therefore the following procedures have been implemented to maintain a balance of document protection and public access:

• Access to the materials will be limited to available staff at the time. At least one records staff person will be available. One staff person will be required to monitor each person. If only one staff person is available, only one person will be allowed to physically access materials.
• For requested records, an area with a desk will be available outside the vault. The records staff will bring the materials from the vault to the area for files and materials to be analyzed. The records staff will stay with the files or materials at all times. Records will not be allowed to be removed from more than one file/location/drawer at a time.
• Unbound records must be kept in the order in which they were received. Records appearing to be out of order should not be rearranged by the researcher, but should be brought to the attention of staff.
• All documents to be copied are to be identified under staff supervision and copied upon completion of the researched file or materials by staff.
• For extensive requests, staff time will be charged in addition to copy charges.
• Notify staff of the requested documents as specifically as possible, and the anticipated arrival date and time in advance. This will allow staff to be better prepared to have materials available upon arrival in an effort to reduce research time and cost.