How to Look Up Who Owns a Property — and What They Paid — For Free
Every piece of land has a paper trail at the county. Reading it is free; the sites that charge just repackage it.
Who owns that house, when did they buy it, what did they pay, and is the tax current? In the United States, almost all of that is a free public record held by two county offices: the assessor (value and tax) and the recorder or clerk (deeds and liens). The paid "who owns this property" sites simply scrape these and charge you for it.
Start with the county assessor
Search "[county] [state] assessor property search" or "parcel search." Enter the address. The assessor's record typically shows the current owner of record, the parcel number (APN), assessed value, tax status, lot size, year built, and often the last sale date and price.
- Find the county assessor or property-appraiser site (NETR Online links most of them).
- Search by address; note the owner name and the APN.
- Open the tax history for delinquencies and the last sale amount.
The assessor tells you who and how much. The recorder tells you the story of how it changed hands.
Pull the deed at the recorder
The county recorder (or register of deeds / county clerk) holds the actual deeds and mortgages. Search by owner name or APN to see the chain of title: who sold to whom, when, and any recorded liens or mortgages. The most recent deed confirms the true current owner even when the assessor lags. For the mortgage servicer, the MERS ServicerID lookup often resolves it.
When the owner is an LLC or trust
Property is frequently held by an LLC or a trust to shield the person. Take the entity name from the deed and run it through the Secretary of State business registry to find the human behind it. A trust may name a trustee whose address ties back to a person.
Distress signals
Delinquent taxes, a recorded notice of default, or a lis pendens in the record are early signs of foreclosure — the same records that feed foreclosure and tax-lien auctions. Reading them at the county is free and current; the auction-listing sites charge for a filtered view of the same filings.
The takeaway
Assessor for who-and-how-much, recorder for the deed and liens, business registry to pierce an LLC. Three free county sources answer almost every property-ownership question — no subscription needed.