How to Find Free County Property Tax Listings
Counties keep property records for taxing and assessment purposes as well as for maintaining an emergency 911 database. Those documents and listings are available for public inspection under state and federal laws that require tax-payer funded government agencies to disclose information to residents. The information is free to look at, but in some cases you might have to pay for the costs of document copies. You may also have to put your request for information in writing and wait several days while the agency reviews and processes it.
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Instructions
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Tracking the Listings
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Visit your county's web page and see if it has a property assessment database which may show listings by address and note assessed value and annual taxes. According Free Public Records Search Directory, public databases for counties might also be searchable by owner name and can include a sales history of the property.
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Visit the county clerk's or recorder's office and ask where you can find property tax listings. Record organization varies by state and county. There may be terminals in the county clerk's office where you can review almost every type of public record maintained at the municipal and county level. But either way, the county clerk's office is in charge of records management for several other departments and can redirect you to the appropriate agency, which could be the real property office or tax mapping service.
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Stop at the county treasurer's office to see a listing of the current properties that are currently tax delinquent. This is a document that is maintained and updated leading up to the point where delinquent properties are foreclosed on and auctioned off with the minimum bid equalling the owed back taxes. The treasurer might also be the tax collection agency for all of a county's municipalities and may have tax bills in its public document files.
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Tips & Warnings
When you come across property tax information on a county web site or at a county office, be clear on whether the figures provided reflect all taxes--county, city/town and school--as opposed to just county taxes.
