Land and property records in the United States are generally managed at the local or county level. Usually, they are available to laypersons, who can search them based on the name of the parties registered on the deed or on the mortgage or based on the address of the property. The websites containing property information are generally in English and Spanish, but translation options are usually available (for instance, the main tool search for New York City property records provides a long list of languages available).
- In the State of New York, property records are managed by the County Clerk’s Office and the Assessment or Tax Assessor’s Office in most cases. However, there are distinctions between New York City (including its 5 counties or boroughs: Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island) and the rest of the Counties in the State.
In the case of New York City, land and property records information is mainly held by the City Register Office, which is under the New York City Department of Finance control. The County Clerk’s Office for each borough or county is also in charge of holding property records within their jurisdiction. In some cases, there could be additional information, such as court records or legal documents that might affect the property itself. To perform a land or property search, the County Clerk’s Offices generally refer to the Department of Finance search engine, named Automated City Register Information System (ACRIS at https://www.nyc.gov/site/finance/taxes/acris.page). The ACRIS system provides specific information about every deed or mortgage recorded on any land or property and includes information from 4 of the 5 boroughs (Staten Island uses the Richmond County Clerk's portal at https://richmondcountyclerk.com).
The ACRIS and the Richmond County Clerk’s portals are available to any layperson, and it is not necessary to sign up or register to perform a search, and they both allow different searching options. It is possible to search, among other ways, based on the name of the party of a document, the type or ID number of a document, or the parcel identifier (i.e.: borough, block, and lot number of the property). The latter method is the most commonly used. One way to obtain borough, block, and lot number of the property is through www.CountyOffice.org portal, a centralized database launched in 2014 that provides free access to government offices' websites and public records all over the 50 states, providing information about the property's main features (including area, buildings, land use code, zoning designation, legal description, tax account number, etc.) and property tax assessment, current assessed value, and a short property sales history (including date, instrument number, seller and buyer information, and type of deed or mortgage connected to the property). - In the State of Florida, the property appraiser website of each County in the State links the properties to the deed by which the owner of records acquired ownership and to the website for the real estate taxes collected by the county in connection with the property. Usually, no registration is required. To find the proper property appraiser website, one can google “Property Appraiser” with the name of the county where the property is located (for instance, https://www.miamidade.gov/pa/home.asp for Miami-Dade County or https://bcpa.net for the County where Fort Lauderdale is located).