How can you find out who owns a property?

One way to find out who owns a property is to contact the county tax assessor and county recorder's offices. Some departments have websites that allow users to search by address, while others require a face-to-face visit. Tax records and the current deed to the property should indicate its owner.

In some cases, the neighbors of a piece of property may be able to provide information about its owner. Asking a few questions about a property in a specific neighborhood may provide the correct information without necessitating a trip to the county records.

Another simple way to try to locate the owner is to send a letter or postcard to the street address. If the property is vacant, there may be a forwarding address on file that reach the owner of the property. It is up to the recipient to reply, however, so he may not provide the requested information.

Other public county and state records may also be useful for finding a property's owner. Marriage, motor vehicle and voting records associated with an address may give clues about an absentee owner.

If manually searching records does not provide the information, professional skip tracers and other services can scan multiple government databases quickly, for a fee. One of these services may be able to locate an owner where other records searches fail.