Scope Statement. This application involved the NYS Office of Real Property Services, county real property officials, and town and city assessors. It consisted of a data quality check on the status of parcel transfers in localities throughout New York State. The application applied nine business rules that identified potential data problems. The application provided:

• a validation of data input from the required RP5217 form,
• an alert to assessors, county real property tax service officers, and ORPS staff about potential data conflicts or abnormalities,
• a simplified verification and more accurate recording of parcel transfer data in the initial stages of reporting.

Role Designations. Three roles assigned within the application were as follows:

• The Assessor had the ability to review flagged records for his or her municipality and make a change in the status of the record.
• The County Real Property Tax Services (RPTS) Official had the ability to review flagged records for all municipalities within their county. In addition, the County RPTS person was responsible for sending the electronic county data to the Prototype system for review.
• The NYS ORPS staff had the ability to review flagged records for the entire state.

Functional Requirements. The basic functional requirements included the ability of each application to:

• Perform the functions listed in the Parcel Transfer Verification Check Application Scope Statement.
• Provide all appropriate users access to the application via a standard web browser.
• Run within the Prototype system.
• Remain self-contained and not integrate with existing production systems.

More specifically, the aim of the parcel transfer process in the Prototype was to reduce or eliminate the errors that currently exist in identifying incorrect tax roll information. In many instances the current process of identifying incorrect data is a manual effort. The Prototype reduced or eliminated the manual process by accepting, at regular intervals, an extract file of the RP5217 data in the existing SalesNet database. SalesNet is an application developed by the NYS Office of Real Property Services that facilitates county entry of RP5217 real property transfer information and allows verification of assessment roll data for transferred parcels.

The Prototype validates each record in this file, based on edit checks of "key word" searches, cross validation of existing data and monitoring of the variance of the sales price to the equalized value of the parcel. When any of records fails one or more of the Prototype edits it gets "flagged" and an automated email is sent to the appropriate assessors, indicating property information, and the reason for the notification. Flags did not mean that a record is indeed inaccurate. Only the assessor could definitely determine if the record was in need of adjustment. Furthermore, the benefit of passing each of the records through the validation was three fold:

• all records were assessed for validity rather than a random sample of records
• more data errors were identified and adjusted earlier
• it was easier for the assessor to catch possible data errors.

Data Requirements. Table 6 shows a list of fields within the RP5217 (real property transfer document) that are likely to have an error, the conditions that make the information erroneous, and potential solutions to the error. Table 7 lists the business rules programmed into the Gateway Prototype. The RP5217 column represents the section of the RP5217 form which contains the data being checked. The issue column represents the business rule applied to that data. The resolution explains why a record was flagged for this check and suggests what to do to resolve it. This information appears on the detailed summary screen for each flagged record. A flag does not necessarily mean that the record is invalid, it is simply an alert that the record appears to be unusual and may need investigation.

Table 7. Data Validation Rules for Checking Parcel Records

RP-5217 Field Description	Condition/Issue	Resolution
Full Sale Price	Full sale price is >$999,999.	Please verify that sale price is correct.
Full Sale Price	Full sale price is <101 and there is no condition associated with the sale.	Full sale price is <101 and there is no transfer condition associated with the sale. Please verify that the sale price is correct and identify transfer condition, if appropriate.
New Construction on Vacant Land	New construction on vacant land is checked but condition code is not.	New construction on vacant land is checked but transfer condition code is not. If new construction has occurred since last final roll available at time of sale, then 15G (significant change) needs to be checked.
New Construction on Vacant Land	If Item No. 9 is checked then Item No. 7 cannot be equal to C, D, or L.	If new construction then property use cannot be vacant land or forest land.
Conditions of Sale	Condition Code J is checked or no condition code is checked with entry in memo field.	(Transfer condition codes) Condition Code J is checked, or no condition code is checked but there is an entry in memo field. Based on entry in memo field determine whether a transfer condition code (other than J) should be indicated.
Buyer Name Seller Name	Keyword Search Error	Keyword search validation has identified this transfer as failing one or more of the Keyword criteria. Verify this transactions buyer and seller names for such things as Agency, Bank, Credit, County, Exec, NYS, Referee, Trust.
Sale Contract Date	Sale Contract Date is not earlier than or equal to date of sale.	Please verify that sale dates are correct.
Buyer Name	Buyer’s last name is the same as the sellers last name and condition code <>A or C.	Buyer’s last name is the same as the seller’s last name and transfer condition code A (sale between relatives) or C (one of the buyers is also the seller) is not checked. Please verify whether transfer condition code should be indicated.
Number of Parcels	Number of parcels – 1 and parcel box is not checked (See calculations of Equalization rates).	The ratio of the equalized full value to the sale price is <.6 or >1.4. Please verify the sale price and transfer condition code, if appropriate.