Guide
How to find out who owns a property (or a house): free methods and how to reach the owner
To find out who owns a property, search its address on your county assessor's free website for the owner's name and mailing address, then confirm it against the latest deed at the county recorder. For an LLC owner, check your state's business registry.
Where to look, what you get, what it costs
Start with the free county records and pay only when they can't answer the question. Costs below come from each source's own site, checked in October 2026.
| Where to look | What you get | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| County assessor, property appraiser or appraisal district | Owner of record, mailing address, parcel number, assessed value, often the last sale | Free where the county puts it online |
| County recorder or deeds office | Deeds, mortgages and other recorded documents, with grantor and grantee | Index free in some counties; Philadelphia's PhilaDox copies: $15 a day to $750 a year |
| County GIS parcel map | Parcel lines and parcel numbers, including lots with no address | Free where the county publishes one |
| State business registry | An LLC's registered office and, in some states, its managers or officers | Pennsylvania: online search by entity name or number; $15 per entity for a written printout |
| Probate records | Whether an estate is open for a deceased owner | Varies by county |
| Title company or real estate attorney | The full chain of title and liens | Quoted per search |
| Parcel apps | Owner and parcel data on your phone | LandGlide $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year; onX Hunt from $34.99 a year for one state |
| Skip tracing provider | Phone numbers and emails for the owner | Per record, per match or subscription credits |
| National Do Not Call Registry | The registered numbers in your area codes, to check call lists against | First five area codes free, then $85 per area code |
Sources: PhilaDox fees (City of Philadelphia), Pennsylvania Department of State, LandGlide, onX Hunt and the Do Not Call Registry for telemarketers, whose subscription fees changed October 1, 2026 (all checked Oct 2026).
How to find the owner of a property by address
To locate the owner of a property, look the address up in the county's own records, read the owner and mailing address, then confirm them with the deed.
- Confirm the county. Records are usually kept by the county, not the city or ZIP code. If you're not sure which county an address is in, the U.S. Census Bureau's Census Geocoder (checked Oct 2026) returns it under "Find Geographies."
- Open the county's own lookup. See the next section for how to find it.
- Search by address or parcel number. Enter the house number and street name. If nothing matches, try it without the unit number or street suffix, or find the parcel on the map and search its number.
- Write down what the record shows. Copy every owner name exactly as listed (two names means two people to talk to), the mailing address, the parcel number, and the last sale date and price.
- Compare the two addresses. If the mailing address differs from the property address, the owner likely lives somewhere else. That's an absentee owner, one of the motivated seller lead types wholesalers work.
- Confirm with the deed. Search the recorder's index for the newest deed on the property. Its grantee is the current owner of record.
Find your county's free property owner search
There is no single free national "who owns this property" search, because each county keeps its own records. The same county search works whether the owner is a homeowner, a landlord or an LLC. To find yours:
- Use a directory. NETR Online's Public Records Online Directory links to assessor, treasurer and recorder sites by state and county, and notes that "Not every county, parish, and municipality has data online" (NETR Online, checked Oct 2026).
- Use your state's list, if it has one. Texas's Comptroller publishes a directory of all 254 counties' appraisal districts and tax offices, and says it "does not have access to your local property appraisal or tax information" (Texas Comptroller, checked Oct 2026).
- Know the office's local name. It might be the Office of Property Assessment (Philadelphia), the Assessor (Sonoma County, California) or the Property Appraiser (Orange County, Florida, checked Oct 2026).
- Make sure you're on the county's own site. Other sites republish owner records, sometimes behind a fee. The county's site, linked from the county homepage or a directory above, is the record itself.
Where the county allows owner-name search, you can also work backward from a name to every property that person owns. Some counties won't let you search by owner name, and some hide the name online altogether. If yours restricts it, search the recorder's index or visit the office.
Assessor or recorder: which to trust
When the two disagree, trust the recorded deed. The assessor's roll exists to send tax bills; the recorder holds the documents that transfer ownership. Sonoma County puts it plainly: "Ownership of a property is a legal determination," one its Clerk-Recorder's office says it has no authority to make (Sonoma County, checked Oct 2026). Before you sign a contract that depends on who owns the property, a title company or real estate attorney can run a full title search.
Walkthrough: Philadelphia's free lookup
Philadelphia is a good example because the city publishes three free layers: an owner lookup, a deed list and a bulk file. We researched them in October 2026 using a public building, SEPTA's headquarters at 1234 Market St, so no private owner appears here.
- Search the property app. At property.phila.gov (checked Oct 2026) you can search by address, property account number or Department of Records registry map number. A notice says "Property Search no longer allows searches by owner name due to privacy concerns." Typing "block:" before an address lists every property on the block, and a radius tool shows all properties within 250 feet of a point.
- Read the owner panel. For 1234 Market St, the record showed Owner: SEPTA, with a mailing address in care of a building-management LLC, an assessed value of $148,232,900 and a $10 sale in September 1993.
- Open the deeds tab. Atlas (checked Oct 2026) lists recorded documents for the parcel with date, type, grantor and grantee. It lets you view "a view-only, watermarked unofficial copy" of each deed "at no cost," and warns that the list starts in December 1999 and "may not be a complete history of title." This parcel had 36 documents. The property app's sales history for the same building showed none.
- Buy clean copies only if you need them. PhilaDox covers deeds and property records from 1974 to the present for $15 a day, $60 a week, $125 a month or $750 a year, plus a 3.5% convenience fee when you pay online; records from before 1974 are requested in person or by mail (City of Philadelphia, checked Oct 2026).
- Download the whole file. The city's property assessment dataset (OpenDataPhilly, checked Oct 2026) is a free download (CSV, GeoJSON or API) that "updates nightly." Querying the city's public API for this parcel returned the same owner and mailing-address fields the app shows.
What this shows for any county:
- The mailing address isn't always the owner. Here it pointed to a building manager.
- A $10 sale price isn't a market price. Read the deed before you treat a sale as a comp.
- Not every recorded document is a deed. The five newest rows on this parcel were continuations and amendments involving banks. Filter by document type.
- Owner-name search can disappear while the data stays public. The app dropped it, but the bulk file still carries owner names. Filter that file for mailing addresses that differ from property addresses and you have a free absentee-owner list, one of several ways to find off-market properties.
Land and vacant lots
For a piece of land with no street address, find the parcel on the county's GIS parcel map, click it, and search its parcel number in the assessor's records for the owner and mailing address. Philadelphia's app also lets you draw a boundary and list every property inside it, which is a quick way to see who owns the land next to you or around a vacant lot.
For a vacant house or lot, the tax-bill mailing address matters more than the property address, since nobody receives mail at the property.
Parcel apps put the same kind of data on your phone, which helps when you're standing at the lot:
- LandGlide lists "over 157 million parcel records in over 3,200 counties," with fields including property owner, mailing address, sale price and transfer date, free for seven days and then $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year (LandGlide, checked Oct 2026).
- onX Hunt, built for hunters, includes "Landowner Information" in its Premium single-state plan at $34.99 a year (onX, checked Oct 2026).
Apps compile county records, so check the county before you rely on one.
Buildings and LLC-owned property
When an LLC or corporation owns an apartment building or complex, a commercial property or a rental, the real job is finding the person behind the company. The county record gives you the entity name; the state registry and the deed get you to a person.
Find the person behind an LLC
- Copy the exact entity name from the assessor record, including "LLC" or "Inc."
- Search the state business registry for that name. Pennsylvania's records "may only be accessed by the correct entity name or entity number, not by officer or owner's name" (Pennsylvania Department of State, checked Oct 2026).
- Read the annual report. From 2025, Pennsylvania LLCs file annual reports that include the "Name of at least one governor" and "Names and titles of the principal officers, if any," shown on the Department's public website (Pennsylvania Department of State, checked Oct 2026). Other states publish different fields.
- Read the deed. Someone signed it for the company; the name under the signature line is a lead.
- Don't wait for a federal list. Under an interim final rule FinCEN published March 26, 2025, entities created in the United States are exempt from reporting beneficial ownership information to FinCEN (FinCEN, checked Oct 2026).
A worked example with placeholders: the assessor lists [Maple Holdings LLC] with a mailing address at [a registered office address]. The registry shows [Maple Holdings LLC], active, with [Governor name] on its latest annual report. The newest deed was signed by [Governor name], [Title]. You now have a person to skip trace with their name and the property address. The registered agent may be a service company, not the owner.
How to see who bought a house
To see who bought a house, find the newest deed in the county recorder's index: the grantee is the buyer and the grantor is the seller. Sonoma County, for example, says its index can be searched online by name, recording date, document number or document title (Sonoma County, checked Oct 2026). A sale only shows up after the deed is recorded, so a closing from last week may not be there yet.
Previous owners and bank-owned property
To find past owners of a house, read the chain of deeds backward: each deed's grantor was the owner before. The assessor's sales history is a shortcut, but as the Philadelphia example shows, it can be empty while the deed list isn't.
To find out what bank owns a property after a foreclosure, look for the deed out of the sheriff's or trustee's sale. If its grantee is a lender, that lender is the owner of record.
When the owner has died
If the owner of record has died, the name on the tax roll can't sign anything, so check the county's probate records for an open estate. In Philadelphia, the Register of Wills probates wills, issues letters of administration when a resident dies without a will, and keeps records of wills and estate inventories, which you can request (City of Philadelphia, checked Oct 2026). The estate's representative and the heirs are the people to reach, and the estate's attorney can confirm who can sign.
How to find the property owner's phone number
County records give you a name and a mailing address, not a phone number. You can write to the tax-bill mailing address. To get a phone number, run the owner's name and the property address through a skip tracing provider; our guide to skip tracing for real estate covers how it works and what it costs, and our roundup of skip tracing services compares providers.
Use the name you found, not just the address. An address-only search returns whoever is tied to the address, which on a rental or an inherited house can be a tenant or a relative.
Before anyone dials, check the National Do Not Call Registry, your internal do-not-contact list and your state's rules. Then confirm you're speaking to the owner in the first seconds of the call; our wholesaling cold call script opens that way. Text only people who gave consent, using wholesaling text scripts that identify you and explain how to opt out.
Find, a CRM for real estate wholesalers, doesn't search ownership records or sell property data. Once you have the owner's name and property address, Find can skip trace one record, a whole Smart List, or new leads automatically once auto-trace is on, with spend caps you set. A trace returns the phone numbers and emails on file when there's a match, and not every trace finds the owner. Traced numbers are never auto-texted, and numbers from an address-only trace stay locked from outreach. Find doesn't check the National Do Not Call Registry, so that step stays with you.
Frequently asked questions
Can I look up a property owner by address for free?
Yes, where your county puts its records online: the assessor or property appraiser site shows the owner of record and the tax-bill mailing address for an address at no charge. If the county hides owner names online, search the recorder's deed index or visit the office in person.
How do I find out who owns a house on my street?
Look up the neighboring address in your county's property search, or click the parcel on the county map. Some sites go further: Philadelphia's property app lists every property on a block, or every property within 250 feet of a point you pick.
How can I tell who owns land that has no street address?
Find the parcel on the county GIS map, note its parcel number, and search that number in the assessor's records for the owner and mailing address. Paid parcel apps such as LandGlide and onX Hunt show owner data on your phone, but confirm anything important against the county record.
How do I find out who owns an apartment building?
Look up the address in the county assessor's records; if the owner is an LLC or corporation, search that exact company name in the state business registry for its managers, officers or registered office. The deed's signature block and the property manager in the mailing address are two more leads.
Can anyone see who owns a property?
Deeds are recorded with the county and the recorder's index is open to the public in the counties covered here, but online access to owner names varies. Sonoma County, California says the assessed owner's name is not online due to legal restrictions, and Philadelphia removed owner-name search from its property app for privacy.
Why does the county website show a different owner than the deed?
The assessor's roll is a tax record, so it can lag a recent sale or show whoever the tax bill goes to, while the recorded deed is the transfer itself. When they disagree, go with the newest recorded deed, and have a title company run a search before a contract depends on it.
Does Find have a property owner lookup?
No. Find, a CRM for real estate wholesalers, doesn't search ownership records or sell property data. Get the owner's name from your county's free lookup; Find can then skip trace that name and the property address for phone numbers and emails when there's a match.