Berkeley County Clerk's Office - Recording, Licenses, Vital Statistics & Civil Service Divisions

Melissa answered my call and was so kind and helpful. Wonderful customer service experience. Thank you!

Wonderful office, very friendly and helpful

Great service, very helpful people

My husband and I walked into the courthouse, seeking information about adding someone to a property deed. Mr. Frank Carbaugh, sitting at the reception desk, asked how he could help us. Once we expressed “we just want to add someone to our property deed,” we were faced with “You can’t just come in here and do that.” We very much understand that. We were only seeking information, and did not by any means expect to be faced with this passive aggressive comment and the annoyance in his tone when he then explained that we have to hire a realtor lawyer and there’s money involved. We don’t HAVE a money problem. Neither do we have an issue hiring a lawyer. We were simply walking in seeking information. Which Mr. Frank did very much make it seem like we were wrong to “just walk in”.

Berkeley County needs a new clerk. I'm a local business owner, real estate investor, and completely disappointed by the archaic access to public documents. This public service has yet to present itself to me as a public service for its citizens. The timing for which interested investors are able to retrieve these public records is imperative. Currently, the task is a time consuming burden which may inhibit our County's improvements and should be easily remedied by online access. My experience, a current task which timing was of the essence, verification of recorded deed was necessary to reference for a meeting this weekend, for which a recorded deed or quick deed that could be recorded before a meeting this Sunday could be present. I planned to visit the county clerk's office with in the business hours that are listed online and arrived with in that time frame to be told that the vault for access to the documents would be closed earlier then what was listed online. I took advantage of the 4 minutes that I was allowed to access the documents, 2 min of which was taken because they had already powered down the computers in the vault so I had to take time to ask to restart the computer. When I asked for the document to be printed, I was told there was no time and it was the exact minute before the vault would be closed. No matter my polite demeanor, the woman working in the vault was not polite responding. This is typical of my experience at the Berkeley County clerks office. Im thinking 'what public service?!'. A couple of visits prior to this one, there is another representative in the office that was equally or more rude by acting aggravated to help even though it was well within operating hours and service provided. I am always polite, direct and succinct in my request for help. I am very considerate of their time and appreciative of their experience provided. The service is unacceptable as it is currently. I believe this needs improvements. I give 2 stars just because I believe that the information is organized and accurate at least.