To find out who owns a house, go to the website of the county recorder or county assessor where the property is located and search by street address. Most counties offer this search for free and return the current owner’s name, the parcel’s assessed value, and the most recent sale date within seconds.
Which County Office to Search
Two local offices track property ownership, and they don’t always agree.
The county recorder, called the register of deeds in some states, holds the chain of title. Every deed, mortgage, and easement affecting a property gets filed here when it’s signed, which means the recorder’s index updates the moment a new document is recorded.
The county assessor tracks ownership for tax purposes. The assessor assigns a value to every parcel and sends the property tax bill to the owner of record. Assessor rolls generally update on an annual cycle rather than in real time, so a sale that closed last week may still show the previous owner on the assessor’s site.
For the most current information, the recorder’s index is more reliable. For a quick lookup with a map and assessed value attached, the assessor’s portal is usually easier to navigate. Either one is a reasonable starting point.
What You Need Before You Search
A street address is enough for most lookups. Type it into the county portal and the result loads.
When the address isn’t enough, two other identifiers do the job:
The assessor’s parcel number (APN) is a unique string of digits assigned to each taxable lot. It appears on property tax statements, recorded deeds, and preliminary title reports. If you have the APN, there is no ambiguity about which parcel you’re pulling up.
The legal description defines the property’s boundaries in technical terms. In suburban subdivisions it usually references a numbered lot within a numbered block of a recorded plat. In rural areas and older cities it more often uses metes and bounds, which traces the perimeter from a starting point using compass directions and measured distances. You don’t need a legal description for a basic search, but it’s the definitive way to confirm you’re looking at the right parcel when comparing records.
Doing the Search Online for Free
Most counties maintain a public property search tool on the assessor’s or recorder’s website. Enter the address or APN and the results page typically shows:
- The current owner’s name
- The parcel’s assessed value
- The most recent sale date and price
- The property’s current tax status
Many portals also link to scanned copies of recorded deeds, which lets you trace the ownership history without ordering physical copies. A lot of counties layer this information onto a GIS map tool. Click a parcel on the map and the same ownership data pops up, often alongside zoning, flood zone, and lot boundary overlays. This is useful when you’ve seen a property from the street but don’t have an exact address.
All of this costs nothing. You only pay when you request an official certified copy of a document, which most portals let you order online for a few dollars.
A few limits to keep in mind. The databases only reflect recorded documents, so a signed-but-unrecorded deed won’t appear. The assessor’s rolls lag behind actual transfers. And some rural counties still haven’t digitized older records at all.
When the Records Aren’t Online
Older deeds that predate digitization sometimes exist only in physical deed books at the recorder’s office. Most offices provide public computer terminals where you can search the electronic index for free, and clerks can help locate volume and page numbers for records that haven’t been scanned.
If you can’t visit in person, mail a written request to the recorder’s office. Include the property’s address and APN, a self-addressed stamped envelope, and payment for copy fees. Copies generally cost between $1 and $5 per page, with certified copies a few dollars more. Payment is usually by check or money order. Processing takes one to two weeks depending on office workload.
When the Owner Is an LLC or a Trust
A search that returns an entity name instead of a person’s name is common, especially for rental properties and higher-value real estate. Owners use LLCs and trusts for liability protection, privacy, and estate planning. Peeling back the entity to find the person who controls it takes extra steps, and sometimes you can’t get there at all.
Trust-Owned Properties
When a property is held in a trust, the deed typically lists the trustee’s name along with the trust name and date, something like “Jane Smith, Trustee of the Smith Family Living Trust dated June 10, 2018.” The trustee manages the property, but the trust’s beneficiaries are the ones who ultimately benefit. Trust documents are private and don’t get recorded, so the deed gives you the trustee’s name and nothing more. Identifying the beneficiaries usually requires asking the trustee directly or going through legal proceedings.
LLC-Owned Properties
p>If the deed shows an LLC, your next stop is the secretary of state’s business database in the state where the LLC was formed. Most states offer a free online search that lists the LLC’s registered agent, its organizer or manager, and its formation date. This doesn’t always reveal the actual person who benefits from the property, because the registered agent is often a third-party service, but it’s a starting point.
There is currently no public federal database for looking up who’s behind a domestic LLC. The Corporate Transparency Act briefly required most U.S. companies to disclose their true beneficial owners, but as of March 2025, FinCEN removed that requirement for all U.S.-formed entities. Only foreign companies registered to do business in the United States still have to file beneficial ownership reports, and that database isn’t accessible to the public.1FinCEN.gov. FinCEN Removes Beneficial Ownership Reporting Requirements for U.S. Companies and U.S. Persons
What the Name on the Deed Actually Tells You
Finding a name is the easy part. What matters next is the form of ownership, because that controls what happens when an owner sells, dies, or divorces. A few forms you’ll see on deeds:
Sole ownership. One person holds full title and can sell, mortgage, or will the property without anyone else’s permission.
Joint tenancy with right of survivorship. Two or more people own equal shares. When one dies, their share passes automatically to the surviving owners, bypassing probate. A joint tenant can’t leave their share to heirs through a will.
Tenancy in common. Two or more people own the property, but there’s no automatic survivorship. Shares can be unequal, and each owner can sell or will their share independently. When a deed names multiple owners without specifying the form, most states treat it as a tenancy in common by default.
Tenancy by the entirety. Available only to married couples in states that recognize it. Works like joint tenancy, with the added rule that neither spouse can sell or mortgage their interest without the other’s consent. It also shields the property from creditors with a judgment against only one spouse.
Community property. In nine states (Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin), property acquired during a marriage is generally owned equally by both spouses regardless of whose name is on the deed. Property owned before the marriage or received as a gift or inheritance usually stays separate.
If a deed just lists two names and nothing else, you’re probably looking at a tenancy in common. If the deed says “as joint tenants with right of survivorship” or “as tenants by the entirety,” those words control.
When to Pay for a Title Search
A county portal search answers the question “whose name is on the current deed.” It won’t tell you whether that title is clean.
A title company examines deeds, mortgages, wills, court judgments, tax records, liens, and other documents that could affect ownership. The point is to find problems a surface search would miss, like unpaid tax liens, unresolved estate claims, or easements that restrict how the property can be used. If you’re buying a property or dealing with a boundary or inheritance dispute, that deeper search is worth paying for.
Real estate data platforms sell aggregated public records as a subscription product. The underlying data comes from the same county records you can search for free, and it often lags behind what the county has on file. For looking up a single house, the county’s own website is almost always enough.