To find out who owns 502 S Everglade Street in Santa Ana, you need to go through Orange County’s property records, because California law prohibits county assessors from publishing a homeowner’s name online without the owner’s written consent.1Los Angeles County Assessor. Assessor – Public Record The name is public, but you have to ask for it directly, either from the Orange County Assessor or from the Clerk-Recorder’s office that holds the deed.
Start With the Orange County Assessor
The Orange County Assessor runs an online property information portal that searches by street address. Enter the address and you’ll pull up the Assessor’s Parcel Number, the assessed value, the assessment year, and basic details about the structure such as square footage and lot size. The parcel number is the identifier the county uses for every lot, and you’ll want it for anything you do next.
What the portal will not show you is the owner’s name. That blackout is a statewide rule, not an Orange County quirk. To get the name itself, you can call the assessor’s office or walk in and ask, or you can skip ahead and pull the recorded deed, which lists the owner in black and white.
Pull the Deed From the Clerk-Recorder
The Orange County Clerk-Recorder holds the official recorded deeds for every parcel in the county, and the deed is the definitive answer to who holds title. The recorder keeps grantor and grantee indexes, so you can look up transfers either by who conveyed the property or who received it. California law requires those indexes to be maintained and open to the public.2Justia Law. California Code Government – Article 2 Books
You can search through the Clerk-Recorder’s online portal or go in person with the parcel number in hand. If you want a certified copy of the deed, California caps recording fees at $10 for the first page and $3 for each additional page.3California Legislative Information. California Code Government Code GOV 27361 In-person requests are usually filled the same day. Online and mailed requests take a few business days.
The deed itself names the current owner and the previous owner, gives the date of the transfer, describes the parcel legally, and carries the notarized signatures that made the transfer official. That document is the legal proof of ownership.
If the Owner Is a Trust or LLC
Don’t be surprised if the deed names a trust or a limited liability company instead of a person. That’s common in California, and it adds a step if you want to know the human behind the title.
When a property sits in a trust, the deed usually names the trust and its trustee. Beneficiaries can request the full trust document from the trustee, but outside parties generally cannot. From the public record alone, you’ll typically see only the trust’s name and the trustee’s name.
LLC ownership is harder to pierce. The Corporate Transparency Act was meant to create a federal database of beneficial owners, but as of March 2025, FinCEN exempted all domestically formed companies from reporting requirements, leaving only foreign entities registered to do business in the United States still obligated to file.4Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting If a California LLC owns the property, there’s no federal registry to search. Your realistic options are to look up the LLC’s registered agent through the California Secretary of State’s business entity records, or hire a title company to trace the chain of ownership.
Check the Property Tax Status at the Same Time
The person on the deed today isn’t necessarily the person who’ll be on it a year from now, and the tax rolls are where that risk shows up. The Orange County Treasurer-Tax Collector’s website lets you search tax payment status by address or parcel number.5Orange County Treasurer-Tax Collector. Tax Search
If property taxes go unpaid, the parcel becomes tax-defaulted on July 1 of the following fiscal year. After five years in default, the tax collector gains the power to sell the property at auction to recover the unpaid taxes; for nonresidential commercial property, that window is three years.6California Legislative Information. California Code Revenue and Taxation Code RTC 3691 The owner can redeem the property any time before the sale by paying everything owed plus penalties, but once the auction happens, the person named on the deed loses the title. Running the tax search alongside the deed search gives you a fuller picture of how secure the current ownership actually is.
Faster or Deeper Alternatives
County records are the authoritative source, but you don’t always have to go there first. Commercial property databases aggregate records from multiple county offices into a single search, often bundling in mortgage history, tax payment records, and estimated values. They charge a subscription or a per-report fee, and the data traces back to the same public records you’d find at the county.
For a serious investigation, especially if you’re thinking about buying or lending against the property, a title company will run a chain-of-title search. That goes beyond naming today’s owner and traces ownership backward through decades of transfers. A preliminary title report also surfaces things a deed search alone will miss: outstanding liens from unpaid debts, easements, homeowners association restrictions, zoning limits, and pending lawsuits touching the property. If anything is going to kill a deal on 502 S Everglade Street, a title report is where it tends to show up.