The Standards Behind Every Property-Records Guide
Our E-E-A-T framework in full: who writes and reviews our content, how we source it from official county .gov offices, how we verify and re-verify search tools and processes, how we handle the constant churn of property data, our FCRA posture, our advertising and FTC compliance, and our human-in-the-loop AI policy. Read alongside our Sources & Methodology.
What is on this page
1. Editorial Mission
Property records are public — but they are scattered across county assessor, recorder, tax, and GIS offices, each with its own tools and rules, and they change on the county’s own schedule. People waste hours on the wrong office or land on confusing third-party aggregators. Our mission is to bring every county’s official record offices and search tools into one plain-English, in-depth, regularly-updated guide, so anyone can find a property’s record at its authoritative source.
2. Our E-E-A-T Commitment
Experience: our guides reflect first-hand knowledge of how county record searches actually work — how assessor, recorder, tax, and GIS tools behave. Expertise: our editors understand the assessor/recorder/treasurer split, parcel numbering, and public-records law. Authoritativeness: we cite primary sources — the county office’s own .gov page and official tool — never aggregators. Trustworthiness: every office detail is human-verified, we disclose our methodology and FCRA posture, we date every page, and we correct errors quickly.
3. Source Hierarchy
We work to a six-tier source hierarchy, where higher-tier sources govern when sources conflict:
- Tier 1 — The county office’s official .gov site: assessor, recorder/register of deeds, tax collector/treasurer, and GIS pages, plus their record-search tools.
- Tier 2 — The county’s official search tool: the authoritative live source of a specific record (value, deed, lien, tax).
- Tier 3 — State statute & open-records law: the public-records act and property statutes governing access, fees, and restrictions.
- Tier 4 — State oversight bodies: state departments of revenue / taxation and boards that oversee assessment practice.
- Tier 5 — Federal frameworks: the FCRA (for use limits), the FTC, and federal public-domain materials.
- Tier 6 — Professional standards: recognized appraisal and recording standards for context, never as a substitute for the county record.
Full detail on each tier is on our Sources & Methodology page.
4. Verification Workflow
- Identify the authoritative source. The county office’s official .gov site — never an aggregator.
- Verify URLs are live. A human editor clicks every link — office page, record-search tool, GIS viewer.
- Test the search tool to confirm it reaches the live county system.
- Cross-check the office address against the official .gov contact page.
- Confirm the search process (by address, owner, parcel number) against the office’s current procedure.
- Check fees & copy procedures for certified copies where relevant.
- Dial-test the office phone on a quarterly cycle — confirming the line answers and routes correctly.
- Editor sign-off. A second editor reviews end-to-end, including the “not a county office” notice and the FCRA “not a CRA” statement.
5. Data-Currency Discipline
An assessed value, a recorded lien, or a tax-paid status can change at any time. Publishing a cached figure would mislead. So we do not publish any individual property’s value, ownership, lien, or tax status — we publish and verify the official county search tool so readers get the live record. What we verify and re-verify is the county’s own infrastructure: the search-tool URL, the GIS viewer, the office phone, and the process. If a county moves a tool or changes a portal, that is a 48-hour priority correction.
6. FCRA Posture
Every relevant page states that uspropertysearch.org/ is not a consumer reporting agency under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. §1681 et seq.) and that the information may not be used for credit, insurance, employment, or tenant-screening decisions. Our editorial framing always treats property records as records about real property, not as background reports about people. See our Disclaimer for the full FCRA statement.
7. Independence
uspropertysearch.org/ is independent. We are not affiliated with any county office, state agency, title company, lender, or brokerage. No office or agency reviews our content prior to publication. No payment is accepted for editorial coverage.
8. Advertising Relationships
We are funded by display advertising. Our editorial content is never altered to favor any advertiser. We decline advertising in these categories:
- Operations that misrepresent themselves as a county office or an official .gov service
- Services that imply FCRA-permissible “background reports” we do not provide or endorse
- Products with deceptive claims under FTC Act Section 5
- Products with environmental/sustainability claims that fail the FTC Green Guides
9. FTC Act Section 5 and State UDAP Compliance
Our own promotional content is written to comply with Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. §45), which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices, and with state UDAP statutes. Spot something deceptive? Report it to us and to reportfraud.ftc.gov.
10. Corrections
If an entry is wrong — a moved search tool, a changed portal, a new office phone number, a revised process — we want to know and fix it. Reader-reported corrections are our priority queue: 7 business days for most, with a 48-hour priority path for broken search-tool links, dead phone numbers, and changed record portals.
11. AI and Automation
We use software tools for spell-check, grammar review, and routine drafting assistance. However, no editorial fact, URL, search-tool link, telephone number, office address, or process detail on uspropertysearch.org/ is published from AI without human verification against the county office's own official .gov page. We do not auto-generate or auto-publish office entries, and we never publish an individual property’s value, ownership, lien, or tax status. This human-in-the-loop standard is central to our E-E-A-T commitment.
12. Contact
For corrections, editorial questions, or sourcing inquiries: info@uspropertysearch.org
Spotted a Correction?
Email us with the subject “Correction”. Corrections are our priority queue: 7 business days for most; 48 hours for broken search-tool links, dead phone numbers, and changed record portals.
📧 info@uspropertysearch.org