To check the title on a property, pull the recorded documents for that parcel from the county recorder’s office — either through the county’s online portal or in person — and trace both the ownership transfers and any claims recorded against the land. The records are public, so anyone can look. What you are building is a chain of title: an unbroken sequence of deeds from the current owner backward, plus every mortgage, lien, easement, or judgment that attached along the way and whether each was ever released.
The work is methodical rather than difficult. Most people can run a basic check themselves for a residential property with a short ownership history. Older parcels, commercial sites, and anything with gaps in the record are where professional help earns its fee.
Gather Four Pieces of Information First
Before you open any database, collect the identifiers that let you pull the right records:
- The full street address, including any unit or lot number.
- The owner’s legal name as it appears on the deed. This often differs from the name a seller uses day-to-day; married couples, trusts, and business entities sometimes hold title under formal names that don’t match casual usage.
- The Assessor’s Parcel Number (APN), a unique numerical identifier assigned to every parcel by the local tax assessor. It appears on annual property tax statements and in the county assessor’s online database. The APN links the property to tax rolls and recorded documents, and it is the most precise way to search.
- The legal description, which defines the exact boundaries of the land using the lot number, block, subdivision name, or metes-and-bounds measurements. It appears on the most recent deed or in prior tax assessment documents.
Pulling all four before you start reduces the chance of searching the wrong parcel, which happens often enough in areas where street addresses have shifted over the decades.
Where Property Records Are Kept
Official land records sit at the county level. The office is called the County Recorder, the Register of Deeds, or the County Clerk depending on the jurisdiction. It is the central repository for every document that affects real estate in the county: deeds, mortgages, liens, easements, and other recorded instruments.
Most counties now run online portals with digitized records indexed by owner name, parcel number, and document recording number. Many portals go back several decades. Older documents may be stored on microfilm or in physical vaults at a separate archival facility, which means an in-person visit if your search reaches that far back.
Access is a matter of public right. You do not need to own the property, be a party to a transaction, or give a reason for your search. Some jurisdictions charge a small per-page fee for copies, and certified copies (stamped as authentic by the recorder) cost more than standard printouts.
Running the Search
By Parcel Number Through the Online Portal
If the county has a modern portal, the fastest route is a parcel-number search. Enter the APN and the system returns every document recorded against that parcel: deeds, mortgages, releases, tax liens, and judgments. Click through and read each one.
For each document, confirm it was properly signed, notarized, and recorded in order. Watch for gaps in the timeline where no deed appears for a stretch of years, and for documents with missing signatures, incorrect legal descriptions, or recording errors. Any of these can signal a break in the chain of title that will need to be resolved before the property can change hands or be refinanced.
By Name Through the Grantor-Grantee Index
Older systems and deeper historical searches rely on the grantor-grantee index. Counties typically maintain two parallel indexes: the grantee index, listing people who received property, and the grantor index, listing people who transferred property or granted interests in it.
Start with the current owner’s name in the grantee index. That entry points to the deed where they acquired the property, which identifies the previous owner. Search that previous owner as a grantee to find the deed before that one, and keep working backward.
While you move backward through ownership, also check the grantor index for each owner during the years they held the land. This is where mortgages, liens, and easements they granted to third parties or lenders show up. Skip this step and you can miss a mortgage that was never fully released or a lien that still attaches to the property.
Problems to Watch For
A title search is only useful if you can recognize the problems it surfaces. Several show up often enough to be worth knowing by sight.
Liens
A lien is a legal claim against the property that gives a creditor the right to be paid from sale proceeds. The common ones include:
- Mortgage liens, recorded when an owner borrows against the property. They should be released when the loan is paid off, but unreleased mortgages from prior owners are a frequent defect.
- Property tax liens, placed automatically by local governments for unpaid taxes. These take priority over nearly all other claims and must be cleared before closing.
- Judgment liens, recorded by someone who won a money judgment against a prior owner. Duration and renewal rules vary by state, and many states allow judgment liens to stand for 10 years or longer.
- Mechanic’s liens, filed by contractors, subcontractors, or suppliers who were not paid for work on the property. They must be enforced through a lawsuit within a state-set deadline that ranges from 90 days to one year after filing.
Federal Tax Liens
When an owner owes unpaid federal taxes, the IRS can place a lien on all of that person’s property, including real estate. Under federal law, the lien arises automatically once the IRS assesses the tax and the taxpayer fails to pay after demand. It is not valid against a buyer who purchases without knowledge of it until the IRS files a formal Notice of Federal Tax Lien in the public records. The IRS generally has 10 years from the date of assessment to collect.
Easements and Restrictive Covenants
Not every title issue involves money. An easement gives someone else the right to use part of the property for a specific purpose, such as a utility company’s access to power lines crossing the land, or a neighbor’s right to use a shared driveway. Easements do not transfer ownership, but they limit what you can do with the affected area.
Restrictive covenants are rules written into the deed that control how the property can be used or developed. They often regulate building design, land use, or maintenance, and they bind future owners even when the original parties are long gone.
Breaks in the Chain of Title
A gap in the ownership record is called a cloud on title. It can come from a missing deed, an improperly executed one, a transfer from someone who did not actually own the property, clerical errors, unrecorded transfers, or a prior owner who died without a clear will. Clouds make a property difficult or impossible to sell until the gap is formally resolved.
When to Hire a Title Company
If the parcel has a long history, the records are in paper form, or you simply want someone else to handle it, title companies and independent abstractors run searches for a fee. They pull and review the recorded documents and compile the results into a formal report, usually called a Title Commitment or a Preliminary Title Report.
You submit the property address and owner’s name through the company’s intake form and specify the depth of the search. A 30-year search covers the most recent decades of ownership; a full search traces title back to the original land patent. An abstractor then reviews the relevant documents and produces a written summary.
Fees typically run $75 to $500 for a standard residential property. Commercial parcels or properties with complex histories can exceed $1,000. The exact figure depends on location, search depth, and the complexity of the recorded documents.
The Title Commitment itself has two parts worth reading closely. Schedule A gives the basics: the effective date of the search, the current owner of record, the legal description, and the type of title insurance policy being offered. The effective date tells you how current the search is; if weeks pass before closing, an updated search may be needed. Schedule B lists exceptions, meaning items the title insurance policy will not cover. Some are standard, such as boundary disputes or unrecorded easements. Others are specific to the property, such as a recorded utility easement or a deed restriction. Anything on Schedule B is a problem that insurance will not fix if it surfaces later, so each item deserves attention.
Why a Clean Search Isn’t the Whole Picture
Even a thorough search cannot guarantee every defect has been found. Forgeries, previously unknown heirs, improperly executed documents, and liens that were not recorded when you looked are all possible, and no examination of public records will catch them. That is the gap title insurance is designed to fill: it covers future claims arising from unknown defects that existed at the time of sale, including fraud, forgery, unpaid taxes, and judgments.
Lenders generally require a lender’s title insurance policy as a condition of the mortgage, but that policy protects only the lender’s loan balance. An owner’s policy, which protects the buyer’s equity for as long as they own the property, is optional and separate. If a title defect surfaces later, only the owner’s policy covers the buyer’s losses.
Fixing a Defect You Find
Most problems a search turns up can be resolved before closing without going to court:
- Outstanding liens are typically paid off by the seller at or before closing, often from the sale proceeds. The lien holder then records a release or satisfaction document.
- Unreleased mortgages, where an old loan was paid off but never formally released, can usually be cleared by contacting the original lender for a release that is then recorded.
- Recording errors such as misspelled names, incorrect legal descriptions, or missing notarizations can often be fixed with a corrective deed or affidavit.
Serious disputes are a different matter. Competing ownership claims, missing heirs, or forged documents in the chain of title may require a quiet title action, which is a lawsuit asking the court to decide who the rightful owner is and to eliminate all competing claims. If the filer prevails, the court issues a judgment declaring them the sole owner and that judgment is recorded. Once entered, no further challenges based on the resolved claims can be brought. Quiet title actions take months and carry significant legal costs, which makes them a last resort. If a defect cannot be cleared with a corrective document or a payoff, a real estate attorney is the right next call.