Missouri Free Recording and Copies of Military Discharge Papers

Mo. Rev. Stat. 59.480.2: "Military discharge documents shall be accepted for filing by the recorder of deeds in all counties and the City of St. Louis in this state without any fee or compensation therefor." A military discharge document is defined widely in subsection 1(2): a discharge, separation notice, certificate of service, report of transfer or discharge, or any other document evidencing severance or transfer from service in the Armed Forces of the United States or any state, including the DD 214. In a county where the offices are combined, the circuit clerk is the ex officio recorder. The recorder may refuse a document that is not an original or an original-signed copy, is not a certified copy from a federal or state agency, or appears altered. Copies are free too. Subsection 6 says copies go only to an "authorized party" who submits a notarized request form, and that the recorder "shall not receive a fee or compensation for a certified or uncertified copy of the military discharge document and shall not charge a notary fee for notarizing such request form." An authorized party is the veteran; a representative with written authority from the veteran, the spouse, the next of kin, a court or the executor, including relatives, attorneys, guardians and funeral directors; or a government agency helping the veteran or the veteran's beneficiaries obtain a benefit. A request form may cover only one discharge document. Privacy. Since August 28, 2004 the public index shows only the veteran's name, the images are kept apart from other records, and no remote access system may show them. Images older than seventy-five years become open records. The forms are set by the Recorders Association of Missouri and every recorder must use them. A recorder's page may say a copy is free to "a veteran or surviving spouse", as St. Louis County's does; the statute's no-fee rule covers every authorized party.