The Office of the City Register is the keeper of all official Real Property and Personal Property documents in all of New York (except for Staten Island, whose real estate documents are with the Richmond County Clerk’s office).
If you are planning to buy a property in NYC, it is part of your due diligence to check with the City Register and make sure that there are no liens tied to the property or any legal document that will prevent the smooth turnover of the title from the seller to you. Our process servers can retrieve the documents you need from the New York City Register’s Office.
How to Obtain Copies of Deeds and Mortgages
All documents registered in the NYC City Register are public domain. This means anyone can look up property records if they’re interested in real estate in New York City.
The following are examples of documents that are recorded at the City Register’s Office and may be viewed or retrieved by the public:
- Deeds
- Mortgages
- Property records (including the names of the buyers, sellers, brokers, and lawyers involved in the transaction)
- Notices of Federal Tax Liens (FTL)
- Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) financing statements
You may obtain these documents in three ways:
- In Person – Visit any City Register Office in NYC. You can request documents for properties anywhere in NYC in any borough (again, except for properties in Staten Island, for which you’ll have to go to the Richmond County Clerk Office). You must make the request in person if you’re looking for property records dated earlier than 1966.
- Online – Create an account at the Automated City Register Information System (ACRIS), NYC’s official online platform for property records covering the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. ACRIS holds digital records and document images for property records dating from 1966 to the present. The website also allows you to compute property transfer taxes and create cover pages and tax forms for record documents.
- By Phone – You may also call 311 and state your request to get copies of deeds or property records.
There’s no fee for viewing real estate records or printing them at home. If you want to get certified copies, however, you’ll be charged $4 per page (uncertified copies printed at a city register’s office costs $1 per page).
Why Hire Process Servers to Retrieve Property Documents?
Serve Index offers a fourth option for obtaining real estate titles and other relevant documents, and that is through our process servers.
The advantage of hiring process servers to obtain property documents from the City Register’s Office is we do all the legwork: going to the nearest borough office register, filing the request, securing certified copies, and taking the papers to your lawyers or real estate agent. If you lack information about the property and are unable to use ACRIS, we can do it for you.
We retrieve property documents on behalf of buyers or property owners, but we can also work with real estate attorneys, agents, and brokerages.
Call for our process servers if you need to retrieve or check property documents for:
- Buying or selling real estate
- Writing your last will and testament
- Verifying the contents of newly recorded documents against a property
- Correcting errors in the current property documents
Serve Index’s process servers are trained and knowledgeable about the proper procedures for obtaining a wide range of legal documents. You can trust that we will work efficiently and accurately so that you can get the documents you need on time.
Get our experienced process servers to retrieve property documents from a NY City Register’s Office. Contact us today.