DeedWatch guides

How to check your own deed — the self-check routine

Updated October 2026 · DeedWatch research team

Your property's record is public, and in most counties it is searchable online, free, in minutes. The deed self-check — pulling your own record, reading it, and confirming nothing has changed — is the one protection that works everywhere: in counties with a great alert system, as a second layer; and in counties with no alert at all, as the whole defense. Here is how to do it properly.

Step 1 — Find the right office's search

Land records live with the county office that records documents. Its name varies by state: the Recorder of Deeds, the County Recorder, the Register of Deeds, the Clerk of the Circuit Court (Florida, Virginia), the Clerk of Superior Court (Georgia), the County Clerk (Texas, New Jersey), or — in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont — your town or city clerk. Massachusetts owners use their Registry of Deeds district. Start from your county government's official website, never from a sponsored search result or a records site that asks for a credit card to “view your deed” — official index searches are free (copies of document images sometimes carry a small per-page fee, and certified copies cost more; the search should not).

Gather three things before you search: your name exactly as it appears on your deed, your parcel number (APN/PIN — it is on your property tax bill), and your property address.

Step 2 — Search by name, then by parcel

1. Name search. Search your last name and first name as grantor and as grantee. Grantor results show documents where you transferred or encumbered; grantee results show documents where you received. Repeat for your spouse's name and, if applicable, your trust's name.
2. Parcel search. If the system offers it, search the parcel number. This catches documents indexed under a name variation you didn't think of — the exact gap that defeats name alerts.
3. Read the list like an auditor. You are looking at every recorded document touching your ownership. You should recognize all of them: your purchase deed, your mortgage and its satisfaction if paid off, easements, your refinance, any estate documents.

What a clean record looks like — and the red flags

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Save or print the results page with the date on it. That dated snapshot is your baseline — next year's check compares against it. If you find a red flag, do not sit on it: the first-steps sequence (recorder, police report, lender, title insurer) applies exactly the same way.

The annual routine

• Pick a date you'll keep. Tie the check to something annual that already happens — the week your property tax bill arrives is ideal, because the same week you should confirm the mailing address on that bill is yours (a changed address is both a fraud tool and a fraud symptom).
• Check every property, in every county. The lake lot, the rental, the inherited land — each has its own record in its own county's system.
• Re-verify your alert enrollments at the same sitting: are you still subscribed, under every name variation, with a current email? People change addresses; alerts quietly die. Our name-variation guide lists what “every” means.
• Log it. One line per property: date checked, what you found, done. The kit includes a printed log designed for exactly this.

And if your county offers the free alert and you haven't enrolled, do that first — the self-check is the backstop, not the front line. Check your county now.