Time for Some Spring Cleaning

(Address \ Owner Name Clean-up)

By: Sherry Surrett

In order to better support a highly requested feature for the 2020 manual, we added a new utility to the program. This new utility, which was released in CAMAvision version 23, is located under Extra Modules and is called Address\Owner Name Clean-up.

Currently, address and owner names are tied to a parcel. This means each parcel (property) has its own unique addresses and owners. However, with more and more businesses and property owners purchasing multiple properties or state statutes forcing multiple parcels based on the amount of land, it is becoming necessary to create a unique owner and/or address to tie back to multiple parcels. Creating this unique distinction will allow you to change the owner name and/or mailing address in one place. This change will then automatically populate on all the parcels associated with it.

With this in mind, in order to best convert your data for the 2020 manual, we need your owner names and addresses to be clean and consistent. Clean and consistent will come in many different forms depending on your CAMAvision data and your jurisdiction. Listed below are some basic recommendations for cleanup. This is not an all-encompassing list but a good place to start.

Recommendations for clean up:

• Ensure all addresses have a city, state and zip code populated. This will help the program differentiate between 102 Second St in City A vs. 102 Second St in City B and create the correct number of entries in the Address table.
• Ensure all abbreviations are consistent. Example: 102 Second St; 102 Second Street; 102 2nd St; and 102 2nd Street are all the same address. However due to the spelling, it would create 4 different entries in the Address Table.
• Ensure all properties owned by the same owner has the owner name spelled exactly the same. Depending on your jurisdiction you may need to enter it exactly how it’s displayed on the deed so you may not be able to change these. However, keep in mind Smith, Joe; Smith, Joseph; and Joey Smith might all be the same owner, but the program will see those as 3 distinct owners due to the spelling and create 3 separate entries in the Owner table.
• Ensure all addresses and owners are in uppercase.

Important Items to Note:

• A good backup should always be done prior to using the utility.
• This utility does live data changing with NO test mode. Extreme caution should be used when making mass changes as the only “undo” is a restore from backup.
• PC Import clients: If your jurisdiction’s names and addresses reside and are maintained in your Tax System. We recommend to only use this utility to find inconsistencies and then make the changes in your Tax System. Otherwise, the changes that get made could get overwritten by your import.