Find Malheur County Clerk Records

Malheur County Clerk Office

The Malheur County Clerk is a county office, not the Circuit Court records office. Gayle V. Trotter is listed as County Clerk, with Amy Lamb as Deputy Clerk for Recording, Chris Harrod as Deputy Clerk for Probate, and Sheena Moore as Deputy Clerk for Elections. The office is in the west wing on the first floor of the courthouse, Room 101 for delivery.

General business hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Mountain Time, Monday through Friday, including the lunch hour. The office closes on state holidays except Columbus Day and is also closed the day after Thanksgiving. Recording, filing, and document acceptance hours end at 4:30 p.m. Mountain Time.

Because Malheur County is on Mountain Time, appointment and delivery deadlines should be treated as Mountain Time even by users coming from other parts of Oregon. The Clerk also requires appointments for marriage licenses, domestic partnerships, and passport applications. A person who needs a same-day recording, license appointment, or passport appointment should confirm the office's current schedule before traveling to Vale.

Malheur County Clerk Duties

The Clerk's at-a-glance duties include elections, real estate recording, probate files, marriage licenses, Property Value Appeals Board matters, and passports. That role overlaps with some record research, but it does not make the Clerk the custodian for all court cases.

• Marriage license appointments and local marriage records.
• Probate files, probate indexes, and probate search help.
• Real estate recording and older recording access requests.
• Election administration and Clerk election staff functions.
• Passport appointments and Property Value Appeals Board matters.
• Written Clerk records requests, copies, certifications, and searches.

Criminal cases, civil lawsuits, divorces, jury duty, and most court file questions go to the Trial Court Administrator / Circuit Court records office.

Request Malheur Clerk Records

County Clerk requests may be made in person, by mail, by phone, by fax, by email, or through the available online search tools where the record type supports it. Written requests are required for name searches. Real estate, marriage, and probate requests can use the Clerk request process; criminal, civil, divorce, and jury-duty questions should not.

Email requests have a local security rule that is easy to miss. If an email includes an attachment, the requester must call first and identify who sent it and what email address it came from. The office says attachments will not be opened without that verification. That rule applies before the office can act on a scanned request, payment form, or attached document.

1. Identify whether the record is real estate, marriage, probate, election, passport, PVAB, or another Clerk-held matter.
2. Search the relevant online tool if available, such as marriage or probate search.
3. Prepare a written request with the name to search, record type, contact details, delivery method, and payment.
4. If emailing an attachment, call 541-473-5151 first and tell the office who sent it and what email address it came from.
5. Mail or deliver payment to the County Clerk at 251 B Street West, Suite 4, Vale, OR 97918.

Note: The Clerk will not open email attachments without the call-ahead verification.

Malheur Clerk Request Fields

The Clerk search request field inventory is short, but each item matters because the office charges by searched name and needs enough record-type detail to avoid routing errors. Use exact names when possible and state whether the request is for real estate, marriage, or probate.

The County Clerk page also lists the PRAS property recording alert service, which went live on March 11, 2026. That service is a fraud-alert and recording-notice tool, not a court case search. It belongs on the County Clerk side of the records map because it monitors property recording activity rather than criminal, civil, divorce, or jury files in Circuit Court.

When a public-records request asks for Clerk-held records, include whether inspection, mailed copies, fax, email, certification, or exemplification is needed. The delivery choice can change the fee and may trigger page, file-size, or payment limits. Court case copies should not be folded into a County Clerk public-records request just because the courthouse address is the same.

Malheur County Clerk Fees

The County Clerk fee schedule controls Clerk-held search and copy work. Fees can differ from Circuit Court fees and from Oregon vital records certificate fees.

Marriage and Probate Clerk Records

Marriage licenses are by appointment only. The office issues licenses Monday through Friday during document acceptance hours except holidays, and both parties must appear with picture ID. The courthouse does not perform ceremonies. Couples must arrange the officiant and witnesses, and Malheur County states that all required people must be physically in the same room for the ceremony.

Probate research is also a Clerk function, but active probate court proceedings still involve Circuit Court authority. The local probate index includes electronic index history beginning in 1886 and imaged documents beginning in 1975 on Clerk office computers. The Clerk staff list names Chris Harrod as Deputy Clerk for Probate.

For marriage records, the Clerk can issue the local license and supports the county marriage index search. For divorce records, the Clerk is not the court-file custodian. Divorce case files and judgments are Circuit Court records, while Oregon Vital Records issues state divorce certificates. That distinction prevents a marriage-license request from being mixed with a divorce judgment request.

Recording and Older Files

The Clerk handles real estate recording and copy requests. Some older files need advance planning. The research file notes that mortgage records from 1973 and older and mining records from 1959 and older are in storage and require 24-hour notice for access. Public access to basement storage areas is not open stack browsing, so contact the custodian before traveling.

PRAS, the property recording alert service, went live on March 11, 2026 according to the Clerk page. It is a records-access and fraud-alert feature tied to recorded property activity, not to Circuit Court case records.

County Public Records Requests

For county-held administrative records, Malheur County's public records policy requires a written, dated, signed request with name, address, contact information, and enough detail to locate the record. The county acknowledges or completes a proper request within five business days, then completes within 15 business days or gives an estimated completion date unless compliance is impracticable.