Restrictive Covenant Detection, Review & Re-Recording
Find the unlawfully restrictive covenants in your official records, get County Counsel’s decision on each one, and re-record a modified copy — all in one platform.
California AB 1466 handed all 58 County Recorders a real obligation: locate the discriminatory restrictive covenants sitting in your official records, redact them, and re-record a modified version (a redacted copy with the statutory form). Nobody handed you extra staff to go do it.
We built the platform that makes it manageable. Detection runs across your historical images, County Counsel reviews and decides in a single screen, and approved documents come back ready to re-record — with an audit trail on every step. Your original records stay exactly as they are.
What AB 1466 actually requires
AB 1466 took effect January 1, 2022. It amended Government Code sections 12956.1 and 12956.2 and added a new section 12956.3 — that’s the one that creates your restrictive covenant program. Every California County Recorder had to prepare a publicly available implementation plan by July 1, 2022, then work through the records to find and redact unlawfully restrictive covenants: language that limits who may sell, buy, lease, rent, use, or occupy a property based on race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, familial status, marital status, disability, veteran or military status, national origin, ancestry, source of income (as defined in Gov. Code §12955(p)), age, or genetic information.
The part that trips everyone up is volume. A county repository can hold millions of document images, most of them scanned off microfilm, with covenant language scattered across decades and buried mid-paragraph. Once a modification document is submitted for recording, County Counsel has to return a determination within a reasonable period of time not to exceed three months — the 90-day window most counties plan around. Approved modifications then get re-recorded into your recording document management system.
And the original stays put. Section 12956.3(c) requires you to retain every nonredacted record for future reference and public request. The original recorded document stays in the official record. You record a Restrictive Covenant Modification alongside it — you do not overwrite or destroy the historical image. You’re adding a redacted version alongside it, not erasing history.
Find it. Review it. Re-record it. Prove it. That’s the whole job — and that’s the shape of our platform.
One platform, four jobs
Each step hands off cleanly to the next, so nothing gets lost between detection and the recording desk.
Find it
Automated detection surfaces covenant language buried in decades of scanned records — no page-by-page manual hunt.
- OCR paired with AI and machine learning locates restrictive covenant words and phrases across hundreds of thousands of document images
- Human verification confirms context — “Japanese tea room” isn’t a restrictive covenant, and our process knows the difference
- Every document carries a “Detected RC” count, so staff sees at a glance what’s in it
- Detection improves with every county project — you get the benefit of every phrase already identified elsewhere
Review it
County Counsel reviews and approves inside the statutory window — tracked, dated, and documented.
- Side-by-side view of the document image and its metadata: book, page, recording date, and status, all in one screen
- Original and redacted versions delivered together, so counsel sees exactly what changed
- Approve or reject each document with one click, capturing reviewer notes and redaction counts
- Role-based access for recorder staff, County Counsel, and administrators — each person sees only what they should
Re-record it
Approved documents come back ready to re-record, with the unlawful language redacted so it’s no longer readable.
- Cover sheets generated and status tracked, so nothing stalls between approval and the recording desk
- Approved modifications prepared for import into your recording document management system (RDMS)
- Works alongside the systems you already run — Tyler, Anthem, Manatron, Fidlar, Cott, Hyland OnBase, and others
Prove it
Status history and reviewer decisions give you a defensible record of compliance.
- Full audit trail on every decision — who reviewed it, what they decided, and when
- Redaction counts and reviewer notes stay attached to the document
- Status reporting you can pull for your Board, for the public, or for other reporting
- 1 platform — detect, review, and re-record in one place
- 90 days — the counsel review window most counties plan to (3-month statutory cap)
- 3 roles — recorder, counsel, and admin access built in
- 100% — audit trail on every decision
Not sure how many images you’re dealing with? Neither are most offices when they start. Give us a rough count and we’ll scope it from there.
How an AB 1466 project works
- Tell us what you have. Rough image counts and formats are fine — books, reels, fiche, or images already sitting in your RDMS. We’ll help you estimate.
- We scope it. You get a clear quote against your actual holdings, including scanning if your records are still on microfilm or paper.
- We digitize and detect. Anything not yet digital gets scanned and OCR’d, then detection runs across the full set.
- Your team verifies and reviews. Staff confirms context, County Counsel approves or rejects, and every decision gets logged.
- You re-record. Approved modifications come back with cover sheets, ready for your recording system.
If your records aren’t digital yet, start with land records and vital records scanning — same team, same project.
Why County Recorders bring this to us
Stay compliant
Meet your AB 1466 obligations and keep counsel’s determinations inside the statutory window — without pulling staff off the recording desk.
Save staff time
Automated detection replaces manual page-by-page searching across decades of historical records.
Reduce risk
Role-based control and a complete audit trail make every redaction decision defensible and transparent.
One partner
We scan, index, detect, and prepare every approved modification for recording — one vendor from the source record right up to the moment your office records it.
Not in California?
AB 1466 is a California law, but California isn’t the only state working through discriminatory covenant language in its official records. The detection models, the review workflow, and the re-recording process all transfer.
If your state has passed something similar, or your office just wants to get ahead of it, we can apply the same tools to your specific requirements.
Frequently asked questions
What does AB 1466 require county recorders to do?
AB 1466 took effect January 1, 2022 and requires every California County Recorder to establish a restrictive covenant program — identify unlawfully restrictive covenants in the official records, redact the discriminatory language, and record the modified documents. Each county had to prepare a publicly available implementation plan by July 1, 2022. Redactions are subject to County Counsel approval, and once a modification document is submitted for recording, counsel must return a determination within a reasonable period not to exceed three months.
Do our original records get altered or destroyed?
No. Government Code section 12956.3(c) requires the county recorder to retain every nonredacted record for future reference and public request. The redacted version is recorded alongside the original — the official record isn’t rewritten, and the historical document stays available. That’s true of the law and it’s true of how our platform works: we generate a redacted copy, we never overwrite your source image.
How do you find restrictive covenants across millions of scanned documents?
We run OCR across your document images, then use AI and machine learning to locate the words and phrases that indicate a restrictive covenant. Detection is only the first pass, though — a person still verifies context. Finding the word “Caucasian” doesn’t mean you found a covenant. Finding “shall not be sold to any person other than one of Caucasian descent” does.
What if our records are still on microfilm or in bound volumes?
Then that’s step one, and we handle it. Nothing can be searched until it’s digitized, so microfilm, fiche, aperture cards, and bound books get scanned and OCR’d first. It’s the same project — you don’t need a second vendor for the conversion.
How does County Counsel review documents in the platform?
Counsel logs in and sees the document image side by side with its metadata — book, page, recording date, and current status. The original and redacted versions are both there, so they can see exactly what would change. They approve or reject with one click, and their notes and the redaction count stay attached to the record.
Can approved modifications be re-recorded into our existing recording system?
Yes. Approved documents are prepared with cover sheets and formatted for import into your RDMS. We’ve worked with Tyler, Anthem, Manatron, Fidlar, Cott, Hyland OnBase, and others — your staff keeps using the system they already know.
How is this different from running a keyword search ourselves?
A keyword search gives you tens of thousands of hits and no way to work through them. The platform gives you the hits plus the workflow around them: a per-document covenant count, a counsel review queue, approve and reject tracking, redaction versions, cover sheets, and an audit trail. The search is the easy part. Managing the decisions is the work.
What does an AB 1466 project cost?
It depends on how many images you have, how much of the collection is already digital, and how much of it falls in the high-risk years. We scope every project against your actual holdings, so ask for a free consultation and you’ll get a real number instead of a guess.
Do you work with counties outside California?
Yes. AB 1466 is California-specific, but the detection, review, and re-recording tools apply anywhere a jurisdiction is working through discriminatory covenant language. Tell us what your requirements are and we’ll map the workflow to them.
Helpful Resources
Just getting started on your digital conversion? These are good places to learn more about scanning projects:
- AB-1466 & Restrictive Covenant Language — our primer on the law, what counts as a restrictive covenant, and why context verification is the hard part.
- BMI blogs — plain-language articles about paper scanning, microfilm conversion, secure processes, and more.
- The Digital Imaging Channel — our YouTube channel that gives you long-form videos and shorts all about digitization projects.
- Project Estimator — before talking to anyone, you can see what your project may cost with our estimator tool. Great as a starting point.
Ready to meet your restrictive covenant mandate?
Tell us what’s in your repository and we’ll put together a free project quote — no pressure, no obligation.