FNIS Sees Tax Offices Slowly Embracing New Technology.(Fidelity National Information Services)

Great strides have been made in adapting technology to track local property tax bills and tax delinquencies on behalf of mortgage lenders, but to some extent the tax tracking industry is only as good as the local governments it works with, according to Chris McCreary of Fidelity National Information Services' Real Estate Tax Services Division.

Mr. McCreary noted that there are some 26,000 property taxing governmental entities nationwide. In some places, the tax collector may also be the fire chief, and the tax office may only be open two days a week, he said.

"Some of them are very manual. Some of them are very small," he told MSN. "For a lender that is trying to automate every process that they have, there is a frustration."

Anyone who believes that all property tax information is available via websites would be mistaken today, he said. But that may be changing, if slowly.

One of the problems associated with automating county and local property tax records is that it costs money, and spending money is inherently a political issue.

Often times, buying or developing systems to automate county or local records may require a bond measure approved by the voters, Mr. McCreary said.

States where obtaining tax data can be especially cumbersome include New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Louisiana, he said.