How to Collect Property Deeds

Property deeds can be found at the Register of Deeds.

The Register of Deeds is the building that stores all land records, birth certificates, death certificates and other miscellaneous deeds for a particular county in a particular state. There documents are recorded in the county books and then made available to the public, as required by federal law. If you need to investigate and collect certain property deeds, you can do so quite easily. However, you will need information relating to each property in question. This will speed up your search.

Things You'll Need

• Property addresses
• Mortgage company names
• Owner names

Instructions

1. Collect all the information you can about the properties in question. For example, if you are collecting deeds for your mortgage business (for solicitation purposes), you can target certain neighborhoods and collect addresses. If you know property owner names or even mortgage companies who hold liens on the property, this will be helpful.

2. Separate all the information. To be more efficient, organize all properties by counties. Each individual county will have its own Register of Deeds. This will allow you the ease of visiting these Registries only once, not over and over again.

3. Find out which counties, if any, have online databases. Some of the more technologically advanced counties put all of the publicly accessible deeds onto an online system. This lets you scroll through the entire county land record system from your home.

4. Visit the county registries without online databases first. Bring all the information you culled regarding the properties in that registry. Ask an abstracter there to help you search for deeds. Hand over all the related information. The abstracter will come up with warranty deeds, quitclaim deeds and possibly tax liens too.

5. Go online to the other registries. Use the search function to find individual properties. Property addresses will likely be the best search keywords. Print out any deeds that you need. This is entirely legal, as these documents are a matter of public record.

Tips & Warnings

• If you are a mortgage broker collecting new leads, make sure to run all prospective leads through the Do Not Call Registry before contacting any potential client.

References

• Do History: How to Search Deeds
• Salem Deeds: Registry of Deeds
• Bankrate: Understanding Quitclaim Deed, Warranty Deed