Research Tools: Property Search Public Records by using OSINT
TOPS wanted to share some of our research techniques that could be helpful for your next investigation. TOPS receives requests to investigate private buildings and residences. We also like to research the history of areas that may have some useful information. Sometimes only 1 member goes out to investigate. We want to double check the property is owned by the person for safety.
Many public records are available to lookup online for free. You should never have to pay to research but I’ll list a few subscription sites that can be useful when you hit a dead end.
Each state has its own website that you can search. It can be a tedious process. The website BlackBookOnline is a good place to start when you need to find the county record site.
Here is an example on how we use these tools:
email from “client” aka a TOPS member
We received a request to investigate a private residence. The person sent an email and includes the address to the home. Take note of the person’s name and address. We are going to do an address search and name search.
BlackBookOnline.info
Franklin County property taxes
http://www.blackbookonline.info
The residence is located in Dublin, Ohio. We decided to use BlackBookOnilne.info to find a property search for Dublin, Ohio. We find that Dublin is in the county Franklin. NOTE: TOPS is using a member’s name and property with her consent.
Franklin County Auditor search of member’s address
- http://property.franklincountyauditor.com/_web/search/commonsearch.aspx?mode=owner
The Franklin County Auditor is the site we are looking for. We search by address first.
Franklin County address result
Now we compare the address and name from the Summary of the Property Search site.
Franklin County address transfer
One very interesting part of researching properties is the “Transfers” section. This can give you information of people’s names that lived at the property, years of the house up to the current owner. Sometimes there are interesting people that had lived in houses that were popular in the local media. This will give you more leads to research newspapers and court records for any interesting crimes.
news.google.com
We find out that the person’s name does match the records for the name and address she provided. Also a news.google.com search is used on the person’s address. Nothing shows up in any local news.
communitycrimemap.com No results near property except theft
- http://communitycrimemap.com/
We decide to double check for any crime in the area that the news didn’t catch. Local police agencies post their own records online. Nothing unusual shows up for the person’s address. Just a couple simple theft a few blocks away.
Everything looks great and we setup a date to do an interview and investigation.
This is a watered down example but this will be useful for anyone looking for new ways to research. We hope you enjoyed this post and look forward to more. The next one will be about reverse image search and power search terms.
Below is a list of tools to use for your own search:
Our local research:
- Franklin County Auditor
http://property.franklincountyauditor.com/_web/search/commonsearch.aspx?mode=owner
- Franklin County Municipal Court
http://www.fcmcclerk.com/case/search
- Franklin County Treasurer
http://treapropsearch.franklincountyohio.gov/Details.aspx?district=590&parcel=174402&ext=0
- Franklin County Recorder
http://countyfusion5.kofiletech.us/countyweb/login.do?countyname=Franklin
- Columbus Ohio Division of Police
http://www.columbuspolice.org/Reports/SearchMain
Reports filed by the Columbus Ohio Division of Police. This allows you to search from 2003 – present.
Other Research:
- news.google.com
We used this search engine for house addresses and names to see if anything is covered in the news.
- NewsBreak
Good website to search news articles of peoples’ names. Example search would be “http://www.newsbreak.com/topics/ghost-ohio”
- Community Crime Map
Crime search map
- Died in House
Search by home address to see if anyone died in the house. Ohio does not have to list this option. Site does require a subscription for detailed information,
- Public Access to Court Records
pacer.gov
Public Access to Court Records. Access to federal court documents. This is useful for anything high profile. There is a lengthy process to sign up as a free user.
- UniCourt
unicourt.com
This website helps with finding court documents that provide the docket entries. Then you can use Google to search for the entry instead of paying a membership to this site.
- JudyRecords
A newer site that gives results similar to PACER. Has a great advanced search option.
- Freedom of Information Act
Freedom of Information Act holds records that were requested from our government. This is where we learned about some fun stuff about UFOs, psychics and Project Blue Book.
- Legacy
Ancestry records and online obituaries.
Paid Research:
- BeenVerified
BeenVerified.com
Paid subscription. This is good for dead ends. Or when information provided doesn’t match up. However you can usually find the information here for free by searching per county website. This takes less work but costs more. Also if court records do show up in BeenVerified, you will still need to go to the county website to read the details.