New York Property Records: How to Find Out Who Owns a Property (2026)

New York splits property recording three ways. Most counties use an ordinary County Clerk; Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx record through New York City's ACRIS system; and Staten Island, despite being a city borough, was never added to ACRIS and still runs its own separate Richmond County Clerk system.

Information last verified on 2026-07-16. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

How Property Records Work in New York

New York's property-recording system splits three ways, and knowing which one applies to a given property is the first step in any search. Across nearly all of the state's 62 counties, an ordinary County Clerk records and indexes deeds, mortgages, liens, and other real-property instruments filed in that county, the same recorder-of-deeds model used in most states. Inside New York City, four of the five boroughs, Manhattan (New York County), Brooklyn (Kings County), Queens, and the Bronx, don't use a County Clerk for this purpose at all. Instead, the New York City Department of Finance's City Register records and indexes documents through ACRIS, the Automated City Register Information System. The fifth borough, Staten Island (Richmond County), is the genuine outlier, covered in detail below. Outside the city, counties each contract with their own recording-software vendor, commonly SearchIQS or Cott Systems, so the search interface, coverage start date, and image availability differ county to county.

Property valuation runs on a separate track from document recording. Most counties and towns tie their assessment data into the New York State Real Property System (RPS); Erie County, for example, runs both a Search for a Property tool through its Real Property Tax Services office and a GIS parcel viewer called OnMap. Some individual towns and cities layer their own branded viewer, such as Image Mate Online, on top of county assessment data. These tools are useful for a preliminary owner name and assessed value, but they are not the recorder's office and don't replace a County Clerk or ACRIS search for an actual recorded deed.

How to Find Out Who Owns a Property in New York

Which tool to use depends entirely on where the property sits. For Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, or the Bronx, ACRIS itself is the source, free, with no login, and it returns both the index entry and a scanned image of the actual recorded document. For Staten Island, use the separate Richmond County Clerk system instead; ACRIS will not have the record. For the rest of the state, check that county's own County Clerk website first.

1. If the property is in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, or the Bronx, search ACRIS directly through nyc.gov/site/finance/property/acris.page by owner name, address, or borough-block-lot (BBL). Document images are free, and the Department of Finance states that ACRIS coverage runs from 1966 to the present for all four of those boroughs.
2. If the property is in Staten Island, use the Richmond County Clerk's Land Documents Search at richmondcountyclerk.com. It is a separate, free system, digitized back to 1945, and it is not searchable through ACRIS.
3. If the property is elsewhere in New York, check that county's County Clerk website for an online index. Availability and whether document images are free vary by county; if there's no online option, contact the County Clerk's office directly.
4. For a broader owner or assessed-value lookup by address, a county assessment tool like Erie County's Search for a Property or a local Image Mate Online site can help, though it reflects tax assessment data, not the recorded deed itself.
5. For a certified copy of a recorded deed, the fee depends on which schedule applies. Within ACRIS, expect roughly $10 for the first page and $2 for each additional page. At a County Clerk outside New York City the charge is fixed statewide by CPLR 8019(f), not by the individual county: $1.25 per page for the clerk to prepare and certify a copy, with a $5 minimum, and $0.65 per page for a plain uncertified copy, all capped at $40 per record. That is why the posted rates match from county to county, with Monroe County charging $5 for up to four pages plus $1.25 per page after that and Oneida County offering online copies at $0.65 per page. What a county can add on top is narrow: a discretionary search fee under CPLR 8021(a)(9), which is where Nassau County's $5 search charge comes from, plus Nassau's block fees and Suffolk County's tax-map verification fee.

New York's Three-Way Split: County Clerk, ACRIS, and Staten Island's Separate System

ACRIS, run by the New York City Department of Finance's City Register, covers deed and mortgage recording for only four of New York City's five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Staten Island, formally Richmond County, is a full New York City borough for every other municipal purpose, but it was never incorporated into the City Register's ACRIS system. Real property documents there are recorded and searched through the independent Richmond County Clerk's office, using its own separate Land Documents Search tool, digitized back to 1945, entirely apart from ACRIS.

The split is written into state law as well. CPLR 8019(a) makes the statewide county-clerk fee schedule supersede other fee statutes, but it expressly excepts fees set by the New York City Administrative Code, and that carve-out covers both the City Register and the Richmond County Clerk. Staten Island is treated as part of the city for fees while sitting outside the city's recording system.

Watch out: Searching ACRIS for a Staten Island address will not turn up the deed, because ACRIS simply doesn't contain Staten Island's recorded documents. You need to know to go to richmondcountyclerk.com specifically, a step that trips up a lot of people who assume all five boroughs work the same way.

The split creates a real procedural wrinkle at closing, too. New York City real estate transactions require the buyer or seller to e-file a Real Property Transfer Tax (RPTT) return through ACRIS, and that requirement applies citywide, including Staten Island. But because Staten Island's actual deed isn't part of the City Register's document-recording system, a Staten Island transaction additionally requires a separate paper filing at the Richmond County Clerk, an extra step that a Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, or Bronx closing doesn't need. For how other states structure their recording systems, see Property Records by State.

Deed-Copy Mailer Scams and Fraud Alerts in New York

New York homeowners, like homeowners nationwide, receive official-looking mail offering to sell a 'certified copy' of a deed or a similar property profile for a steep price, often well above what the actual document costs. These mailers use words like 'official' and include real property details pulled from public records to look legitimate, but they aren't sent by any government office. The real cost of a certified copy is far lower: roughly $10 for the first page plus $2 per additional page within ACRIS, or the statutory $1.25 per page with a $5 minimum at a County Clerk elsewhere in the state, and most homeowners already have their original deed from closing. If a solicitation letter arrives, don't pay it.

New York homeowners also get one protection automatically, with no enrollment. Real Property Law Sec. 291, the section that governs recording of conveyances, requires the recording officer, meaning the county clerk or the city registrar, to mail the owner of record a written notice whenever a conveyance of residential real property is recorded. The notice must carry a heading printed in 20-point bold type reading NOTICE OF SALE OR TRANSFER OF OWNERSHIP OF YOUR RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY, and the party seeking to record the conveyance bears its cost. Treat that mailing as an alarm rather than a lock: the same section provides that a failure to mail the notice, or a failure by any party to receive it, does not affect the validity of the conveyance. It tells you a transfer was recorded; undoing a fraudulent one still takes a lawyer and a court.

New York City runs its own free deed and title fraud protection on top of that: the Notice of Recorded Document program, available through nyc.gov/acris or nyc.gov/finance. Registration sends an automatic email confirmation, and afterward the city emails a notice, usually the day after recording, whenever a document is recorded against your registered borough-block-lot (BBL), which covers Staten Island's BBLs as well as the other four boroughs, even though Staten Island's actual deed images live in a separate system. Outside New York City, several individual County Clerks, including Suffolk, Nassau, Sullivan, Saratoga, Rensselaer, and Schoharie counties, run their own free property or real property fraud alert service that emails a subscriber whenever a document is recorded under a watched name. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) issued a June 2026 public service announcement describing a related, more serious pattern, forged quitclaim deeds used to fraudulently transfer vacant land, rental property, and mortgage-free homes, and recommends enrolling in a recorder's notification service like these as a primary defense.

A Property Records Search Is Not a Title Search

A free ACRIS or County Clerk search is a good starting point for identifying an owner, tracing a chain of title, or monitoring for fraud, but it is not a substitute for a licensed title company's full title search and title insurance policy before closing on a purchase. A professional title search checks deeds, mortgages, liens, judgments, and court records together, and industry and state insurance-department sources put the share of residential transactions with a title issue at roughly one in four, problems a self-directed public-records search can miss.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about how to find public property records in New York. It is not legal advice, is not a title search, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Office names, fees, and online-access details were verified as of 2026-07-16 and can change; confirm current information with the relevant County Clerk, City Register, or Richmond County Clerk's office before relying on it. If you are buying or selling property, or need to resolve a title, ownership, or boundary dispute, consult a licensed New York attorney or a licensed title company.

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Last updated: 2026-07-16. Figures and program details reflect their in-force version as of 2026-07-16.

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