Property title search

Property title search, done for you in any U.S. county

By the U.S. Title Research team. Updated 2026-11-10. General information, not legal advice.

What does a title search show?

The search answers two questions about a property: who holds title, and what is recorded against it. The answer comes from the recorded documents themselves, read in order, not from a database summary.

• Owner of record and vesting. The current deed, the names on it and the form of ownership it creates, quoted from the instrument.
• Chain of title. The sequence of deeds and other transfers that leads to the current owner, as far back as the county's records go.
• Mortgages and deeds of trust. Each loan recorded against the property, with its release if one is of record, or reported as open if none is.
• Liens and judgments. Tax liens, judgment liens, association liens, mechanic's liens and notices of pending court actions that touch the owners or the land.
• Taxes and assessments. Tax status and special assessments, confirmed with the tax office.
• Easements and restrictions. Recorded rights of way, utility easements, covenants and plat notes that run with the land.
• The legal description. The description in the current deed, compared against the sources it should match.

Every finding in the report points to a recorded document, and the report includes the document images, so you can read the instrument instead of taking a summary on trust.

House, home and real estate title search: which package fits?

A house title search for a buyer, a home title search before a sale and a real estate title search for a court file are the same discipline with different questions on top. Each package runs the full search and then adds the research that situation needs.

• Probate law firm: Find every property a decedent held, how it was vested and what has to be paid before it passes. $595 per estate.
• Real estate law firm: A preliminary report with schedule-style exceptions and print-ready exhibits for your matter. $695 per property.
• Builders and developers: Multi-parcel research on access, easements, restrictions, mineral reservations and entity ownership. $995 first parcel.
• Auction buyer: Know the total cost to own, which liens survive the sale and whether to bid at all. $395 for 1 property.
• Home buyer: Confirm the seller owns the home and learn what has to be cleared before you pay. $449 per property.
• Home seller: Find the old mortgage, judgment or name mismatch before a buyer's title company does. $449 per property.

If two situations apply, start with the one whose deadline comes first. If none fits, tell us what is going on in writing and we will say which package applies, or whether none does. All six are set out side by side on the order page.

How do you order a title search online?

The whole order is online and in writing. There is no phone call to schedule and no account to create.

1. 1

   Tell us your situation

   Pick your package, give us the property or person, your deadline and what the report is for.

2. 2

   We research and verify

   We pull the chain of title and every key document, then confirm the findings with the assessor, tax office, recorder and courts.

3. 3

   You get your report

   A PDF by email with a plain-language summary: what we found, what it means and what to do next.

You give us an address, a parcel number or an owner's name with the county and state, the date you need the report and what it is for. Payment is by card through Stripe Checkout, and the confirmation email carries your order number. The steps are described in full on how it works.

Can you do a title search yourself?

Often, yes, at least in part. Land records are public. Most recording offices let anyone search their index, and many publish it online. The assessor and the tax office answer questions about a parcel, and court records are open in most places.

What makes a search hard is not access but completeness. An index only finds what was indexed under the name you typed, so a deed recorded under a maiden name, a trust, a misspelling or a prior owner is easy to miss. Older instruments may exist only on microfilm or in bound books. Liens can sit in a different office from deeds, and a judgment or a pending lawsuit is found in court records, not land records. A search that stops at the online index reports what is easy to find, which is rarely the problem you needed to know about.

The law behind the record also changes by state: where deeds are recorded, how a foreclosure or tax sale affects title, and how property passes at death. The title search by state pages set out those rules for each state, with every statement linked to its statute.

Is a title search company the same as a title company?

No. A title company, in the usual sense, issues title insurance and handles closings. U.S. Title Research is a title research, abstracting and consulting company. We search the record, verify what we find with the offices that hold it and report it to you in writing. We do not close transactions or issue title insurance policies.

That difference decides when each one is useful. An insurer searches in order to decide what it will insure at a closing. A research report is ordered when you need to know what the record says before you act: before you bid at an auction, list a house, buy without an agent, open an estate or file a case. Before closing any transaction, we recommend a title insurance policy from a title insurance company. The research and the policy do different jobs.

What a title search cannot tell you

The search reports the public record. It does not report what was never recorded: an unrecorded deed, a boundary dispute between neighbors, someone living on the land without a recorded right, or work done without a permit that no office has noted. It is not a survey and it does not decide a legal question. Where the record itself raises one of those questions, the report says so and says who can answer it.

Questions about ordering a title search