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State lawmakers considered but ultimately rejected a proposal to switch to an online-only system for foreclosure notices, state Rep. Bob Herkes said.
Mark Ambard, a commercial real estate agent who is also a court-appointed foreclosure commissioner, said running auction notices on a state website would reduce costs and increase exposure. "The people who buy foreclosures know where to look," he said.
But Herkes said he was not in favor of online-only publishing.
"From my standpoint, representing a rural area, some older people wouldn’t have any access at all," he said.
Both the AARP, a membership organization of people age 50 and older with nearly 150,000 members in Hawaii, and the Hawaii State Judiciary also objected.
"We liked the idea of adding IT (information technology), but the Judiciary did not want to reduce newspaper printing because we still feel that there is part of the population that relies heavily on newspapers, especially seniors and the economically challenged," said Kevin Thornton, director of support services for the Hawaii State Judiciary. "It’s kind of important that everyone gets a chance to see public notices."
Thornton said the Judiciary felt it was unfair to expect people to use the Internet or access public notices at the library, whereas the newspaper is delivered to their homes and is easy to use.
"In a newspaper, people know where the documents are; however, Web pages can change depending on the designer," he said.
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