North Carolina Free Recording and Certified Copies of a Discharge

North Carolina requires the Register of Deeds in every county to record a military discharge document and to furnish certified copies to the veteran at no charge. This belongs in a benefits catalog because a missing DD-214 blocks almost everything else in it. The property tax exclusion, the veterans homes, the cemeteries, the license plates, the hunting license, the employment preference, and the scholarship all require proof of service, and the federal records centre can take weeks or months to replace a lost copy. Subsection (n): "There shall be no fee charged for filing military discharge documents or for providing certified copies of military discharge documents provided to those who have a right to access". Recording the discharge with a county Register of Deeds creates a local, permanent copy that the veteran, and later the widow or widower, can draw certified copies from immediately and for free. G.S. 47-113.2 limits copies to the veteran, the widow or widower, an agent authorised in a notarised writing by either of them, by a court or by the executor of a deceased veteran, agents of the State Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, VA, the Department of Defense or a court helping with a benefit, and the State Archives; other family members need one of those authorisations. The register accepts a discharge for recording only when it is presented in person. Two practical notes. Record it now rather than when it is needed, because the value is entirely in having done it in advance. And tell the family which county holds it, since the most common time a certified discharge is needed urgently is at a veteran's death, to establish cemetery eligibility. Recorded discharge records are protected from general public inspection, so recording does not expose the document. A discharge becomes public only after it has been on file for 80 years. There is no disability rating, no cost, and no deadline.