Access Carteret County Clerk Records

Carteret County Clerk Contact

The Carteret court contact directory lists Ken Raper as Clerk of Superior Court. The office is in the Carteret County Courthouse at 300 Courthouse Square, Beaufort, NC 28516. The main clerk phone is 252-504-4400, and the directory lists fax 252-504-4401. Public hours for the courthouse are Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The clerk is part of the North Carolina Judicial Branch rather than a county-run court department.

North Carolina court-official guidance says clerks are elected in all 100 counties for four-year terms. They perform clerical and record-keeping functions for Superior Court and District Court, keep records under N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts rules, collect money due in court cases, serve as judge of probate, and handle special proceedings. In some criminal contexts, clerks also issue arrest and search warrants, conduct initial appearances, and exercise certain magistrate-like powers for minor offenses listed in the statewide guidance.

The official contact directory shows the clerk and division lines used for Carteret County Clerk of Superior Court records.

Those division numbers are useful when a record request is civil, criminal, estate, juvenile, or special proceeding specific.

Carteret County Clerk Duties

The clerk keeps the court file, not every county public record. Carteret County court records include civil cases, criminal cases, special proceedings, estate files, divorce judgments, traffic and infraction records, judgments, liens, and other trial-court records filed through Superior Court, District Court, magistrates, or clerk proceedings. Court dates and hearing calendars are accessed through the Judicial Branch and eCourts tools, while paper files are viewed in the county where the case is located.

• Records for Superior Court and District Court cases filed in Carteret County.
• Civil division help at 252-504-4422 and criminal division help at 252-504-4444.
• Estates at 252-504-4455 and Special Proceedings/Juvenile at 252-504-4466.
• Bookkeeping and cashier help at 252-504-4411 for court money and payment questions.
• Probate duties, including wills, estates, guardianships, partitions, and trust administration.

For online case lookup, Carteret County is an eCourts county. eCourts went live for Carteret and other coastline counties on February 3, 2025, bringing Portal, eFiling, and Enterprise Justice/Odyssey to those counties. That means many public Carteret court-record tasks now start online, while older, restricted, certified, or paper-only matters still require clerk contact.

Carteret County Clerk Record Access

Court-record access has several official channels. The North Carolina eCourts Portal provides Smart Search for case information, Search Hearings for calendars, Make Payments for eligible criminal or infraction payments, and judgment search functions. Public self-service terminals in clerk offices can access criminal, civil, special proceeding, and estate case information. The actual paper file is viewed at the clerk's office in the county where the case is located.

Judicial Branch guidance says criminal case information can be searched at a public terminal by defendant name, case number, or victim or witness name. Civil, special proceeding, and estate case information is also available through public terminals. Staff can provide copies of court-file documents for a fee. Divorce judgments are obtained from the clerk in the county where the divorce was granted.

Note: The Judicial Branch advises that people performing background checks should use the county clerk's office rather than relying only on Portal results.

Request Carteret County Certified Copies

A certified copy is a clerk-issued copy that verifies the court document as an official court record. Certified copies may be needed for divorce judgments, estate letters, judgments, name changes, appeals, agency filings, and other legal tasks. Carteret's public court pages do not publish a full court-copy fee schedule here, so callers should confirm cost and payment method before sending a request. The process starts with identifying the case and document, then choosing online search, phone, in-person review, or mail based on what the clerk can provide.

1. Find the case number through eCourts Smart Search, a hearing notice, an old court paper, or a clerk terminal.
2. Identify the exact document needed, such as judgment, order, letters testamentary, complaint, disposition, or certified docket entry.
3. Call the correct Carteret division to confirm availability, fee, certification cost, and whether the file must be reviewed in person.
4. Submit the request in person or by the method the clerk confirms, with payment made to the correct court office.
5. Ask whether the copy can be picked up, mailed, or prepared after staff pulls a paper file.

Carteret County Clerk Payment Rules

The Carteret County payment page gives court-payment rules. Mail payments go to Clerk of Superior Court, Carteret County Courthouse, 300 Courthouse Square, Beaufort, NC 28516. Mail payments must be by money order or certified check. The page says no cash and no personal checks by mail. Payments should be made payable to Carteret County Clerk of Superior Court, and eligible traffic citation payments by mail should include the citation number.

In person, the Cashier's Office accepts cash, credit or debit card with processing fees, money order, and certified check. No personal checks are accepted. Online payments for eligible cases use credit or debit cards with processing fees through the Portal. Carteret's page lists MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and Discover for card payments, while the Portal notice also warns that Apple Pay, Google Pay, Cash App, Venmo, and similar digital payment applications are not accepted.

Carteret County Public Records Form

The Carteret County public-records request form is not a substitute for a court-file request. Its routing notice says court records, court dates, and hours of operation should go to the Carteret County Clerk of Court at 252-504-4400. Law-enforcement records should go to the Sheriff's Office records unit or the related agency, and vital records such as birth, death, and marriage certificates should go to the Register of Deeds.

Still, the county form is useful because it shows the routing fields and the level of detail expected for general county administrative records. It also reinforces that requesters should not send court, sheriff, vital, school, municipal, or tax requests to the wrong office.

Carteret Clerk vs Register

Carteret County has a unified court clerk for trial-court records, but the Register of Deeds is the separate county recording office for real estate transactions, deeds of trust and mortgages, plats, subdivisions, powers of attorney, assumed names, separation agreements, vital records, military discharges, notary records, and properly acknowledged legal documents. The Register of Deeds page states that everything in that office is public record except military discharges.

Karen S. Hardesty is the Register of Deeds. The office is at 302 Courthouse Square, Beaufort, phone 252-728-8474, fax 252-728-7693, and it is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. A marriage license or certified marriage copy belongs there. A divorce judgment, estate record, criminal case file, civil judgment, or court date belongs with the Clerk of Superior Court.

Carteret County Recording Fees

Carteret's public court pages do not publish a court-copy fee schedule here, but the Register of Deeds fee schedule is posted. Use this table only for Register of Deeds work, not for court-file copies. It is included because many people contact the clerk for marriage, deed, or vital records that are actually handled by the Register of Deeds.

The Carteret jury-service page is another clerk-adjacent source because jury requests route through courthouse staff and the chief district court judge.

Jury instructions are not a copy-fee source, but they show how court administration still routes through the Carteret courthouse.