What public records can I use to find the current owner of a property?

Where the county assessor's site offers a street-address search, use it. Where it doesn't, find the parcel on the county's parcel map. In Texas, the record is kept by the county appraisal district.

The record gives you three things to carry to the recorder: the owner name as the county spells it, the mailing address, and the legal description, which for a platted lot is the lot, block and subdivision. Copy the assessor's parcel number, or APN, exactly as the county prints it. Formats differ by county. PropertyRadar's criteria glossary notes that the dashes have to match and that some counties format an APN as book-page-lot.

The name on this record is the assessed owner, the party the county bills for the tax. The mailing address can be older than the name. San Bernardino County, for one, takes the address from the change-in-ownership report or the recorded document at transfer and keeps it until the owner asks in writing for a change.

In the county recorder's or clerk's index, search the assessor's owner name as grantee, the party receiving title. The newest indexed deed into that name gives you the grantor, the recording date and the instrument number. Open the document and read four things: the instrument type, the legal description, the parties and the interest conveyed. A correction deed or a deed of a partial interest sits in the same index as a full sale, and the index entry alone doesn't show which one you have.

Then search the same name as grantor, from that recording date to today. This shows whether the owner has deeded the property away since. A later instrument out of that name for the same legal description is a recorded change, and it needs the same reading before you conclude that the property changed hands.

When the roll and the latest deed name the same party and nothing later is indexed, that party is your working answer for the owner of record on the day you searched. Keep the search date with the county, the APN, and the deed's type, recording date and instrument number. Each office's file shows only what it had processed by then.

The answer is still a statement about records. Jefferson County, Texas says its clerks do not determine the validity of documents or verify ownership of property. A recorded deed shows that an instrument naming a grantor, a grantee and an interest was recorded on a given date. Whether that deed is valid, and what has happened since, are outside the index.

The Harris County Clerk's real property search, which covers Houston, shows what the deed search looks like on a screen. The form loads without a login. Its fields include Grantor, Grantee, Date (From), Date (To), Instrument Type, Subdivision or Description, Lot and Block.

The Grantee and Grantor fields, with the date range, run the two searches described above. The legal description fields matter when the name is common. On a platted parcel, lot, block and subdivision separate the instruments for your parcel from those for another property owned by someone with the same name.

The page states three limits that shape how you read a result. Images are available from November 1, 1960, so older deeds have to be requested from the office. A document takes 1 to 2 business days after it has been processed for recording to appear in the search. And the online database is not the official repository of real property records. Copies are ordered through an account on the same portal and arrive by email. A certified copy authenticates the recorded document. It doesn't establish that the title the document describes is valid or current.

Suppose you hold 300 addresses across three counties. By hand, that is 300 assessor lookups and 300 deed searches in three county systems, each with its own APN format and search screen. A property data service exists to shorten that work. PropertyRadar puts assessor and recorder data behind one search, and its fields line up with the records above.

Its lookup takes a site address, an APN, an owner name or a mailing address, and Bulk Lookup accepts more than one at a time. The glossary defines Owner Name as each person or entity extracted as an owner from assessor or recorder documents, and Mailing Address as the owner's address per county tax assessor records. Purchase Date is the date the most recent change of ownership was recorded at the county recorder's office. The profile's Transactions tab opens on the current owner's recorded transactions. It has a second view of all transactions for the property and a Title Search link that opens the county recorder's website.

These fields are extracted from county documents, so they can reflect the county's delays and errors. PropertyRadar's public records overview says typos are common in the underlying records, and that it supplements them with data estimated by computer models or bought from third parties. So the list is for deciding which owners are worth pursuing. For the parcels you plan to make an offer on, follow the Title Search link and compare the newest indexed deed with the Purchase Date on the profile.

Lag between the two offices is one explanation. California's Board of Equalization explains that a county assessor reviews all recorded deeds for that county to find ownership changes, which puts the roll a step behind the recorder. When the newest deed names a different grantee than the roll, put the two documents side by side. Check whether the deed corrects an earlier one and whether it conveys the whole property or a share of it. Check too whether the two names are one party written two ways, such as a middle initial on the roll and a full name on the deed.

The harder case is a change that neither office has seen. A death or an unrecorded transfer reaches the assessor only when someone reports it or the office finds it another way. The same California guidance gives a new owner 90 days to report an unrecorded transfer.

An old deed doesn't show that anything has changed. A deed recorded in 1998 can still name today's owner. The sign to look for is a later instrument that mentions an estate, an heir or a personal representative. If you find one, look for a probate case in the county where the owner lived.

A deed that names an LLC settles whose name is on title and leaves you without a person to talk to. The business filing in the state where the company was formed is the public record for that, and what it shows depends on the state. Texas requires an LLC's certificate of formation to give the name and address of each initial manager, or of each initial member when there are no managers. Delaware requires the company name, registered office and registered agent, and doesn't require members to be listed.

Either way, the filing describes the company at formation. A registered agent is there to receive legal papers and may have no role in the property. So treat a name from the filing as a lead and confirm the person's current role with them. For some parcels held by an LLC, corporation or trust, PropertyRadar's profile lists contact information for authorized representatives or signatories, which is a second lead to confirm the same way. Separate answers cover finding the person who decides for an LLC or trust and finding every property the same person or LLC owns.

None of these lookups is a title search. Before you buy, a title company, abstractor or attorney examines the chain of title, the liens, and whether the seller has title to the property.