With all the steps you’re required to take during the home buying experience, you may be forgetting to ask some fundamental questions, like when was the house built, and what exactly is its history? So, before you strike a deal with a home seller and begin the closing process, it’s essential to learn about the property history of your soon-to-be home.
Below, we outline how you can search for a house’s history. Hence, you know exactly when it was built, any significant renovations completed, and other essential details to help make homeownership that much more accessible and stress-free.
How can I find my property history?
Discovering the history of a house you own or want to buy can be a fascinating rabbit hole to dive down. However, it can also be a little tricky.
You’ll probably start with public records search on your local city and county websites but may find significant differences in what’s available online from different websites.
That can also help determine how many steps you’ll go through to find your property’s history. But don’t worry, we’ll walk you through the process.
Step 1. Look up summary info
The first step in finding a house’s history is looking up the property’s address on a real estate website.
The property details listed will include the assessor’s parcel number (APN) or tax ID number and the year the house was built under the Public Facts section, among other details.
Be sure to write down the APN or tax ID number since you’ll be using this in many of the steps below.
Step 2. Go to your county recorder’s website
A county recorder’s office, which may also be called a county clerk’s office, locates all taxable property in the city or county.
They identify ownership, establish a taxable value on the property, and record other documents, such as deeds of trust, reconveyances, liens, and lien releases.
Step 3. Look at the county parcel viewer
The quickest and most straightforward way to locate property history information on a county recorder website is with the APN number.
If you couldn’t find a parcel number for a property by looking on a real estate website, you can most likely use your city or county parcel search feature.
An assessor’s parcel viewer allows you to search by address or parcel number visually by zooming in on the property on the interactive map.
In most cases, you can choose the type of map you want to see, like aerial satellite imagery, streets, topographic, and others.
You may want to switch between map types to make the search easier.
For example, if you have the address of the house and the house’s location on a map, you can either search for the address or zoom in on the neighborhood with the aerial map and switch to the street map to find the street.
When you click on the property, you’ll see a pop-up box. This box contains basic info about the property history.
From here, you can access various property records, including when built the house, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, assessed value, and tax history.
If a parcel viewer isn’t listed in an obvious way on a recorder’s site, you can search for it on the city or county site or via a regular search engine.
It might go by other names, such as property information viewer or parcel lookup, especially for counties that don’t offer a map-based interface.
If the property consists of multiple tax parcels under common ownership or has been formally combined into a single box, keep in mind that some of the records may still be listed under the original parcel numbers.
Step 4. Access property records online
Next, see if the county or city has an online portal where you can look up more detailed public records data for property taxes and permitting.
That includes deeds, liens, and more. Again, depending on the county or city, you can often view these records for free online.
Note that online records will have limited availability regarding what year they start. For example, online forms might begin anytime between the 1970s and the 1990s.
However, if your house does not have online records between these dates, you might have to search microfilm.
A microfilm is a photographic record of documents, such as deeds, building permits, or other legal forms. Sometimes microfilm records are found digitally, but other times you may need to view them in person.
May split the property records you want between city and county databases. For example, the county may have records dating from 1970 to 1980, while the city might have documents from 1981 to 1990.
In that case, you may need to check both city and county records to find all the property records on your home.
Step 5. Order copies of property records
If you can’t view a document online, you can usually order copies. Or you might want hard copies of documents that are available online.
You can generally get copies of property records in-person, online, by mail, or by dropbox.
If you want certified copies, you will typically have to pay the recorder’s office a nominal fee by page or document.
Step 6. Get permit records
Permits can tell you a lot about the original construction of the property and any later additions to the home.
The city or county permitting department may have an online permit center, where you can search for current or past permits by address or parcel number.
For some houses, looking up detailed public records will be very straightforward. In other cases, it won’t.
For example, if you built the house in the 1920s and then remodeled it in the 1980s, you likely won’t know what was included until you get the building permits from the 1980s.
The original licenses from the 1920s might only be available on microfilm and maybe a little more than a hand-drawn sketch.
Usually, you would find permits records at the planning or permitting office. However, if the jurisdiction of the property is a city, you will contact the city for permit records.
Otherwise, you’ll get the permit records from the county. Keep in mind that both city and county records will exist in some areas.
For detailed permit records, you’ll often have to request them in digital form or make an appointment to review the original copies at the building or planning counter.
You can typically find permits on a wide variety of projects, additions, remodels of different rooms, finished basements, upgraded electrical components, complete renovation, or even a change of use, such as when a commercial building becomes residential.
How can I find the owner of a home or property I’d like to buy?
In some cases, you’ll need an owner’s name or other information to do a property search for public records information. So, it would help to find the name of the current home or property’s owner.
Go back to the county parcel map, locate the property again, and click on it. Some parcel viewers will give you the owner’s name.
If not, check the property report. That often includes the most recent sales history listing the seller and buyer and the change in ownership instrument, like a deed.
You can usually click on the recording number to see the act. You may also be able to look at the property tax bill, which typically lists the owner’s name and address.
Deeds and ownership transfers
Another way to find an owner’s name is through deeds. When you look at a property on a parcel viewer and find the property detail report, you may see the last ownership transfer and document type.
In some cases, this may show you names and dates. But it also may just show you a number you can use to request the latest deed via email or in-person from the assessor’s office.
You can also find the owner through a records search for the property history and locate the “grantor” and “grantee.”
Typically, the grantor is the seller or the one taking out a deed of trust or mortgage, and the grantee is the buyer or inheritor of the bank holding the deed of trust or mortgage.
Note that some search results may also show nearby properties, so be sure the parcel ID matches the one you’re researching.
Census and planning records
Other options include census records, depending on the year. These records can give you details on the residents and their relationships over time.
And if your property is on the city water and sewer system, you can check with your local planning department or inspections department for side sewer cards.
Side sewer cards can show you the dates installed side sewer at a specific address—and the names of property owners and contractors. You will typically need the parcel number or address to find side sewer cards.
What kind of property details can I get from public records on a house’s history?
The local parcel viewer is a great place to begin any property records search, as we described earlier. The corresponding property report gives you a wealth of information on the house, including the year it was built, floor plans, photos, condition, lot size, and tax roll history.
Property details you can get from public records include:
Property info
The owner’s name, address, maps, parcel and block number, zoning, jurisdiction, and historical preservation status are included. You can also see the property tax information and its status (if it’s been paid or is delinquent).
Other property info consists of the size of the lot, square footage, floor plan, number of rooms, certain fixtures, number of stories, what year built the house, and if remodeled the home.
Assessor’s summary, assessor’s roll values, or tax rolls
Tax rolls will have basic descriptive information about the property history, such as name, legal description, taxes paid, and the property’s assessed value.
You can typically find the tax roll history in the property report. Zoning districts, special use districts, and regulations such as additional dwelling units (ADUs)
Environmental info and environmental impact statements
That can give you specialized info about the land and property, including potential air pollutants, flood risk, seismic hazards, and slope info.
Maps
Maps can show you how the area, land, property, and street layout have changed over time.
Surveys
You may be able to look at a land survey on the county recorder’s website. A land survey will show you the home’s property lines. If it’s not online, you can request copies from the recorder’s office.
You may also find surveys on a maps section for land records. Note that surveys aren’t always indexed by parcel number, so in many cases, you’ll need to copy and paste the brief legal description.
Active and completed permits
- Permits usually have the name of the property owner and contractor and the address. In addition, you might see keys listed in the property report.
- Planning or building department complaints.
- Encumbrances, liens, deeds, and easements.
- Plumbing permits, septic system records, and good private records.
Photos
These are typically searchable by parcel number or legal description and can often be found at the city, county, or regional archives.
You can often see an exterior photo in the property report via a parcel viewer.
In addition, property record cards usually have photos. Unfortunately, it’s not always straightforward to find aerial photographs, but you may find some city or county agencies that make those available online.
Area reports as part of the property report
These include taxing districts, maps, the area’s typical valuation, and other details. If you’re lucky, this will also have an account from the department of assessments about the neighborhood.
An area report may include a one-to-two page overview of the house’s area, including topography, the typical condition of homes, and the specific subareas of the neighborhood.
What if I’m looking at an older home?
When you buy an older home, you might want to learn about ownership history. For example, you’ll probably want to know how upgraded the house over time, if anything different was on the property beforehand, and how the land was split up.
Historical materials are often found within various local agencies. The archives site for your city, county, or region is one place to start. In addition, you can typically find property record cards in the archives department.
These cards will give you photos and historical information about the property. From there, you can access record cards with a parcel number or the abbreviated legal description.
Property record cards may include photographs and exterior sketches, description and date of construction, ownership information, and permit numbers.
To search for property records of a historic home, you’ll typically need the parcel number, address, or legal description.
Note that the parcel number, street name, and street number might have changed over time with older homes.
The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps are an excellent resource for seeing if the structure of an older home has changed over time.
These maps show the building’s size, shape, and construction, firewalls, locations of windows and doors, sprinkler systems, types of roofs, and neighborhood infrastructure like water lines.
You may also want to look for reports on the history of a specific area of the county. A notification will give you a comprehensive historical look at a broader regional site that includes your property.
Unlike the in-depth reports on a neighborhood or smaller area you might find from your county, these historical reports will consist of more details on the history of how used the land. You can also use your local library’s special collections to find more about the area’s history.
Can I do a free online property title search?
The short answer is yes. While most of the resources described above are free or meager in cost, running through a comprehensive title search will take some time.
But if you want to know when you built your home or who currently owns a property you’re planning to buy, you can likely find that out in just a few minutes.
For example, in the property details shown in the parcel viewer described above, you can often see the property’s sales history. That will show the sale price, the seller and buyer’s name, and the type of deed.
The sales history will also show you some, but not necessarily all, recorded easements and encumbrances.
What if I have questions about the process?
While many property records are straightforward, others may be harder to make sense of.
Luckily, some professionals look at these documents all the time, including real estate attorneys, escrow agents, and real estate agents.
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