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Filing for office, including petition signature requirements and political party status.
Elections administration, including the Election Inspector's Guide; absentee voting; and the Michigan Qualified Voter File.
Find information about the Board of State Canvassers and its meeting notices.
Title and registration requirements; special titles; name changes; address changes; license plate fees; insurance requirements; new Michigan residents; lost titles; lost license plates; and deceased vehicle owners.
Disability parking and placard information, disability parking, disability plate, disabled parking permit, and wheelchair.
Recreational vehicles such as snowmobiles, watercraft, ORVs, and trailers.
Operating requirements for agricultural vehicles on public roads - lighting, slow-moving vehicle emblems, and more.
The International Registration Plan (IRP) - a program for registering and licensing of commercial vehicles in interstate operations among member jurisdictions (states or provinces).
The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) online service for customers filing financial statements and liens through the Secretary of State.
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The Office of the Great Seal functions as the State's official repository for many types of public records. Michigan laws require numerous state and local agencies to file records with the Secretary of State, including the Office of Regulatory Reform, the Governor's Office, and units of local government. Examples of such records to be filed would be administrative rules, gubernatorial appointments and proclamations, as well as charters and boundary changes.
Upon request, documents on file in the Office of the Great Seal may be copied and certified. Copying fees ($.10 per page) may be applied according to the number of documents requested. Certified copies are an additional $1.00 per certification. All fees must be prepaid by cash, check or money order and made payable to the State of Michigan. If you are requesting your documents to be mailed to you, you must provide a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
Public acts, executive orders, administrative rules, certain oaths of office and municipal filings are all maintained in this office. The retention periods on these documents range from one year to twenty years. In all cases, documents that are active and in use ("live") are retained here for the life of the file. This means that deeds to state-owned lands, county records, easements, etc., are all filed here on a permanent basis. After leaving this office, either by expiration of the retention dates or by the discontinuance of the file, they are forwarded to the State Archives, having previously been determined to be of historical significance.
Certified copies are provided upon request for any records that are on file with this office. The charge is $1.00 per certification, plus copying fees of $.10 per page. Many of these are provided for legal purposes, to private citizens and government agencies, as well as law firms.
To submit a request for records, please review the FOIA Request website for more information.
Municipal corporations are created by a specific public act. To locate or verify a specific municipal corporation, the following information is required: the public act number, the year of the act, and the corporation name. However, please be advised that municipal corporations do not file resident agent names or annual reports. Therefore, that type of information is not available from this office.
School district records are filed with the Department of Education. You may contact the General Information office at 517-373-3324.
County Clerk and Court Official's oaths are filed with the respective county. These include Probate Court officials, County Clerks, Sheriffs and Prosecutors.
Attorney oaths are filed with the Michigan State Bar. For more information please visit their website or contact their office at 517-346-6300.
Profit and not-for-profit corporations are registered with the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) - Corporations Division. Their number is 517-241-6470.
The Office of the Great Seal is recognized as the official repository, and therefore files and maintains all petitions, resolutions, county board of commission orders and State Boundary Commission orders to alter city, village or township boundaries.
Upon receipt, a job number is assigned and an acknowledgement letter confirming the filing date (effective date) is forwarded to each municipality. The property description is then submitted to the Michigan Department of Transportation for review and mapping purposes in accordance with 1951 PA 51. As soon as the submission is confirmed as complete and accurate, copies are provided to the appropriate state agencies to ensure that each municipality receives a proper pro rata distribution of gasoline and motor vehicle weight tax revenue, intangible tax revenue, and state alcoholic liquor tax revenue. These documents are also used to ensure the population figures and Act 51 maps are accurate for reporting to the federal government, and to obtain other state funds, monies or grants as they become available.
Boundary changes are published annually electronically on the Legislative Service Bureau Web site at www.legislature.mi.gov, from there Select:
The following section specifies the documents required to be filed for each boundary change. All documents must contain matching metes and bounds property descriptions.
Cities
Villages
Home Rule
- By mutual consent - petition, village resolution, adjoining municipality resolution
- By election - petition, every required resolution/affidavit/certificate, and certified copy of Board of Canvassers Certificate
General Law
Village petition/resolution and County Board of Commissioners Order
Charter Townships
Charter township resolution and resolution of adjoining municipality
State Boundary Commission
All documents filed by the State Boundary Commission
Conditional Transfer of Property Agreement
Copy of signed agreement between local units of government
State Boundary Commission Action Required for:
Related Documents & Topics:
All deeds of conveyance to the state of any lands, after recording at the county level, are sent to the Secretary of State for retention. These deeds are the largest record series filed in the Great Seal vault and necessitate the fireproof storage required.
Department of Natural Resources deeds represent well over half of the entire collection, followed by the Department of Transportation, University holdings and other State departments.
As of March 1, 1994, all land patent records were transferred to the State Archives. All requests for land patent records should be referred to that agency at 517-373-3559. Archives of Michigan
When the State of Michigan was authorized under specific federal laws to sell land and use the proceeds for specific purposes, the first purchaser of such land was given a numbered certificate as proof of purchase. These certificates were then surrendered and a land patent issued which could be entered in the County Register of Deeds records.
When certificates were issued, the number was recorded in the corresponding plat book; when patents were issued, the volume and page number were recorded by the certificate number.
Requests for certified copies of the land patents are received from members of the public and from petroleum companies or others interested in either recording the patent or for personal records.
