Kent County Clerk & Register of Deeds

The Kent County Clerk / Register of Deeds Office

The Kent County Clerk and Register of Deeds is a combined elected office. The current office holder is Lisa Posthumus Lyons. The office runs out of the Kent County Administration Building at 300 Monroe Avenue NW in Grand Rapids. Staff there take in vital records, mark recorded land documents, log election filings, log assumed business names, and run the county's notary and concealed pistol licensing support work.

The image below shows the official Kent County Clerk of the Court page, which names Lisa Posthumus Lyons as the elected County Clerk and Register and ties the two roles to one office holder.

Source: Kent County Court Clerk page.

The court file work for the 17th Circuit Court runs through the Clerk of the Court counter on the second floor of the courthouse. The vital, land, and election work runs through the County Clerk and Register counter on the first floor of the administration building. Both counters fall under the elected office, but the public counters and phone lines are not the same. For court files, see the Clerk of the Court page.

What the Office Handles

The County Clerk and Register has a long list of public duties. The list below covers the core record types and services held by the office. A few of these items overlap with state agencies; the office acts as the local intake point and the local certified copy source for Kent County.

• Marriage licenses and certified marriage records for Kent County residents and out-of-state applicants.
• Vital records intake and certified copies under state law.
• Recorded land documents, deeds, mortgages, and lien filings handled by the Register of Deeds side.
• Assumed business name filings for sole proprietors and partnerships doing business in Kent County.
• Election filings, candidate paperwork, and county election support work.
• Concealed pistol licensing support where applicable under state law.
• Notary public commission filings and notary record keeping.
• Some passport intake and other county clerk services.

The office is not the keeper of court case files. Divorce judgments, felony case files, civil case files, and probate files all sit with the relevant court's clerk function. For a court file copy, the user should ask the Clerk of the Court, the 63rd District Court, or the Probate Court. For a marriage license, a deed copy, or a vital record, the user should ask the County Clerk and Register at 300 Monroe Avenue NW.

Address, Hours, and Contact

The County Clerk and Register counter is on the first floor of the Kent County Administration Building at 300 Monroe Avenue NW. The counter is open on weekdays. There is a posted cutoff for in-person marriage applications late in the day, so plan to walk in well before close.

Online marriage applications received after 4:45 pm are not processed until the next business day. Calls and counter visits should land inside the posted hours. For court records, the public should call the Clerk of the Court line at 616-632-5480, not the County Clerk and Register line.

Marriage Licenses

Marriage licenses are issued by the County Clerk and Register, not by the court. The office takes the application, runs the state-required checks, and prints the license. The signed license is returned to the office after the wedding, and a certified copy can be ordered from the same counter.

The image below shows the official Kent County marriage license page used to source the fee and cutoff rules listed here.

Source: Kent County Get a Marriage License.

For the full step-by-step marriage license walk-through, the local rule on out-of-state applicants, and the link to certified divorce judgments from the court side, see the marriage and divorce records page. Divorce judgments are court records and come from the court, not from the County Clerk and Register.

Register of Deeds and Recorded Land Documents

The Register of Deeds side of the office is the local record keeper for land documents tied to property in Kent County. The Register accepts deeds, mortgages, discharges, liens, easements, plats, and other documents that the law lets a party record against a piece of real property. Once a document is recorded, the office stamps it with a date, time, and liber/page or document number and adds it to the county land index.

Common reasons to use the Register of Deeds counter include a home sale, a refinance, a quit claim deed between family members, a death affidavit on a joint deed, a mortgage discharge after a payoff, and a mechanic's lien filing. Title companies and real estate lawyers are the heavy daily users, but any property owner can walk in. Plain copies and certified copies of recorded documents are sold at the counter, and most older land records are kept on file or on the county's image system.

Property owners who want to check what is recorded against their parcel should ask the Register staff for help with the land index. The staff can show how to look up a parcel by name, address, or parcel number. For the broader public records process on non-court county files, see the public records page.

AccessKent / CNSearch Document Portal

Kent County runs an online document search portal under the AccessKent / CNSearch brand. The portal lives at accesskent.com/CNSearch/login.action and is set up as a login page. Some search functions may need an account. The portal is for clerk and register records, not for court dockets. For court case search, the right tool is the statewide MiCOURT Case Search.

The table below lists the basic field inventory observed on the portal login shell. The exact field labels and the public-side search controls can shift, so the user should look at the live page before each search.

The portal is not a substitute for the counter. Certified copies and the official record of a deed still come from the office. For court records, use the path on the court records page or the court dockets page.

How the County Clerk Differs from the Clerk of the Court

The County Clerk and Register of Deeds office is not the same public counter as the Clerk of the Court. Both roles fall under the one elected office, but the public-facing counters, phone numbers, and record sets are split. The chart below shows the split at a glance.

For a full walk-through of the court side, see the Clerk of the Court page. For probate, see the probate records page. The sheriff side and the jail records live on the inmate records page.

FOIA vs Clerk Requests

Not every record at the County Clerk and Register counter is sold the same way. Marriage records and vital records run under state vital record law at MCL 333.5129. Recorded land documents are public under land recording statutes. County administrative records, like staff manuals or office budgets, run under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act at MCL 15.231, with the right to inspect or copy set under MCL 15.233 and the fee rules at MCL 15.234.

FOIA is not the right path for a court file. Court files run under Michigan Court Rule 8.119. The Kent County FOIA process is the right path for non-court administrative records held by a county department. The county FOIA request form and intake notes live on the official county FOIA page.

The image below shows the Kent County self-help resources page, which the office uses to send pro se users to forms, the Legal Assistance Center, and Michigan Legal Help when a clerk question is really a court question.

Source: Kent County Self-Help Resources.

Related Kent County Searches

The County Clerk and Register sits at the center of land, vital, and election records, but most of the other Kent County record sets live with the courts or with the sheriff. For circuit court files, see the Clerk of the Court page. For court case search, see the court records page. For dockets and hearings, see the court dockets page. For marriage and divorce help, see the marriage and divorce records page. For probate, see the probate records page. For jail and inmate files, see the inmate records page. For non-court FOIA, see the public records page.