Finding what someone owns is a public records exercise, not a hacking one. Property deeds, recorded mortgages, liens, judgments, corporate filings and vehicle titles are all matters of record, and an asset search is the discipline of assembling them into a picture rather than a list.
How to find property someone owns
Start with the county property appraiser and the clerk of court in every county where the person has lived, then widen nationwide. The complication is almost never the search. It is that people do not hold property in their own names. Title sits in an LLC, a trust, a spouse’s name, or an entity formed in another state, and connecting those back to a person is where the actual work is.
What an asset search will not find
Bank balances and account records are not public and cannot be obtained by an investigator. Neither are brokerage holdings, retirement accounts, or the contents of a safe deposit box. Reaching those requires a subpoena or a court order, which means it requires a case and a judge, not a search. What a public record asset search gives you is the documented picture: what is titled, what is encumbered, what is owned through an entity, and what the recorded history says about how it got there. In a collection or a settlement negotiation that is usually the picture that matters.
What do the county clerk’s official records hold?
Section 28.222 of the Florida Statutes makes the clerk of the circuit court the county recorder and directs the clerk to record deeds, mortgages, claims of lien, judgments, federal tax lien notices and notices of lis pendens in one series called the Official Records. A lis pendens is a notice, recorded under section 48.23, that a lawsuit affecting the property is pending. All instruments recorded in the Official Records must remain open to the public for inspection and copying.
The clerk indexes each instrument by party name, and section 28.2221 requires that index on a public website from no later than January 1, 1990 forward. Insight Investigative Group, LLC, Florida agency license A3400127, is a licensed private investigative agency in Bradenton. An index or a database summary finds the thread; we then pull the recorded document, so the report cites a record your attorney can obtain independently.
Under section 695.01 a conveyance or mortgage of real property is not good against creditors or later purchasers for value without notice unless it is recorded, and under section 55.10 a judgment does not become a lien on real property in a county until a certified copy is recorded there. A database that reports one of those liens is reporting what the Official Records hold.
What do the property appraiser and the tax collector show?
The property appraiser assesses real property as of January 1 each year (section 192.042) and applies the exemptions. Under section 193.114 the assessment roll, the appraiser’s parcel-by-parcel list, carries the just, assessed and taxable values, the recorded selling price and transfer date of each recent deed with its book and page or instrument number, and the owner’s name and address.
The tax collector bills, collects and sells tax certificates on parcels where the taxes go unpaid. Under section 197.102 a tax certificate represents delinquent taxes and assessments and becomes a first lien on the parcel, superior to all other liens with one statutory exception. The tax collector keeps the record of certificates sold (section 197.432), so that lien is checked there, not in the clerk’s index.
What do Sunbiz and the UCC registry show?
Sunbiz is the Florida Division of Corporations website, the state’s official business entity index. It is searchable by entity name, officer or registered agent name, federal employer identification number and street address. A registered agent is the person or company an entity designates in Florida to receive and forward legal process (section 605.0113). An entity’s page shows its status, registered agent, officers, directors or managers with their addresses, and its filed documents as PDF images.
The floor is lower than people assume. An LLC’s annual report must name at least one person with authority to manage it (section 605.0212), and its articles of organization must state only its name, principal office addresses and registered agent (section 605.0201). Neither has to name the members who own the company. Judgment liens on personal property are filed with the Department of State under section 55.202 and are searchable on Sunbiz by debtor name.
A UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) financing statement is a secured creditor’s public notice of its lien on personal property such as equipment, inventory or accounts. Under section 679.5011 most financing statements are filed with the Florida Secured Transaction Registry, the centralized UCC database whose records the Department of State owns; a fixture filing (goods treated as part of the land) goes to the clerk of the circuit court instead. It names the debtor and the secured party and indicates the collateral. It shows a pledge, not a balance.
How is ownership through an entity traced?
One link at a time. The deed names an LLC as grantee (the party receiving the property) and, for an instrument executed on or after July 1, 1991, section 695.26 bars the clerk from recording it unless it shows the grantee’s post-office address and the preparer’s name and address. The Sunbiz record supplies the registered agent, principal office address and the person with authority to manage. The officer and registered agent search lists the other Florida entities that name is on, and each name goes back through the clerk’s index.
What ties the chain together is repetition: the same person, address, agent and preparer, on one recorded instrument after another. Trusts are the limit. Under section 689.073 a recorded deed to a trustee with power to sell, lease or encumber the property vests that power in the trustee, and anyone dealing with the trustee need not inquire into the beneficiaries or any unrecorded trust agreement. The record shows who holds title, often not who benefits.
Where does public record research stop?
At the account. A recorded mortgage states the original amount; the current balance is the lender’s account record, and like bank balances and account records it reaches a case only through a subpoena, a court order or the subject’s own written authorization. At the name: a maiden name or a misspelling hides a deed in a name index, and property held through an entity is indexed under the entity’s name, not the person’s.
An asset search is not a title insurance commitment or an opinion of title. This article is general information about Florida public records, not legal advice. For a specific property or dispute, talk to a Florida attorney.
Questions we are asked
Are Florida property records public?
Yes. Section 28.222 says all instruments recorded in a county’s Official Records must remain open to the public for inspection and copying, and section 28.2221 requires the index online from no later than January 1, 1990 forward.
Can you find out who owns an LLC in Florida?
Not from Sunbiz alone. The annual report must name at least one person with authority to manage the company, and neither it nor the articles of organization has to name the members. The public record shows control and pattern: who manages, who signs the deeds and mortgages, and which addresses and agents repeat across entities.
Do liens show up on a public record search?
Recorded liens do: mortgages, claims of lien, judgments and lis pendens in the Official Records, UCC financing statements in the Florida Secured Transaction Registry, and judgment liens on personal property with the Department of State. Property taxes are different. Section 197.122 makes them a first lien from January 1 of the year levied, by operation of the statute rather than by a recording, and section 695.01(3) leaves liens for taxes, special assessments and utilities out of its recording requirement.
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Written by Joshua Goldberg, Florida private investigator license C3400073, owner of Insight Investigative Group, LLC, agency license A3400127, Bradenton, Florida.
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