The newly appointed or elected register or any successor within 5 years after the original vacancy occurred shall complete, compare and certify any unfinished record or certificate required by law and make all requisite certificates upon deeds and other papers recorded, which the removed predecessor should have done if such records and certificates had been completed by the predecessor, which certificates shall be as effectual in law as if made by the predecessor; for doing this, the minutes made by the predecessor upon such deeds or other papers and the entries made by the predecessor in the books required to be kept for such purposes shall be sufficient authority. If payment for such services has been made to the predecessor, the newly appointed or elected register or any successor shall be paid for them out of the county treasury, and the former register and the former register's sureties shall refund such payments to the county treasury, to be recovered by a civil action upon the former register's official bond.   [PL 1981, c. 502, Pt. B, §41 (AMD).]