ACRIS NYC: How to Look Up Property Ownership and Sales History

ACRIS — the Automated City Register Information System — is where every NYC deed, mortgage, lien, satisfaction, and assignment lives. It's free, public, and largely unloved: the interface looks like 2003 and the document codes are abbreviations of abbreviations. But almost every meaningful piece of NYC ownership history is in there. Here's how to read it.

What ACRIS actually covers

ACRIS is the Department of Finance's recorded-document database. Every legally-recorded instrument touching a property since 1966 (digitized) and earlier records by index card are searchable. It does not include:

• Leases under 3 years.
• Verbal or unrecorded transfers.
• Internal LLC ownership changes (you'll see the LLC as grantee, but not who owns the LLC).
• Staten Island records before 1966 — those are at Richmond County Clerk.

Three ways to search ACRIS

By address

The address tab is the easiest entry point. Type the street number, street name, and borough. ACRIS resolves to one or more BBLs and shows every recorded document. Watch for street-name ambiguity — "5 Avenue" and "5th Avenue" both resolve, but typing "Ave" instead of "Avenue" can drop matches in the older index.

By BBL

If you already have the BBL (see our BBL lookup guide ), this is the most reliable path — no address-string ambiguity. Pick the borough, type the block number, type the lot number, run the search.

By party name

If you know an LLC or owner's name, the party-name search returns every document where that party appears as grantor (seller) or grantee (buyer). Useful for tracing a landlord's portfolio across multiple buildings.

The document types that actually matter

• DEED — ownership transfer. The most important record on the lot.
• MORTGAGE — a loan secured by the property. The original document plus every assignment, modification, and consolidation.
• SATISFACTION OF MORTGAGE — that mortgage is paid off. Pair this with the original mortgage to know whether a prior loan still encumbers the property.
• UCC — Uniform Commercial Code filing, usually a security interest in fixtures or equipment. Common on commercial properties and condo conversions.
• LIS PENDENS — notice that a lawsuit has been filed affecting title (typical for foreclosure actions). A live lis pendens is a hard "do not buy without a lawyer" signal.
• FEDERAL TAX LIEN / NYC TAX LIEN — the IRS or city is owed money and has formally noticed it against the property. These survive ordinary sale.
• ASSIGNMENT OF MORTGAGE — the lender sold the loan to another lender. Common; rarely changes the borrower's situation.

Reading a NYC deed in 60 seconds

Open the deed PDF (PDF link is in the search results). Scroll to the cover sheet, which ACRIS auto-generates. The cover sheet shows:

• Document Date — when the parties signed.
• Recorded Date — when ACRIS officially recorded it. Use this for ordering a chain of title.
• Property Address & BBL.
• Grantor — seller. Grantee — buyer.
• Consideration — purchase price, sometimes shown as $0 or $10 for transfers between related parties (these are not arms-length sales).

Page through the rest of the document for legal description (metes and bounds), exhibit attachments, and any title-company endorsements. For most lay due-diligence, the cover sheet is enough.

Watching LLC ownership shuffles

Many NYC buildings are owned by single-purpose LLCs. The LLC name on the deed can be a string of cryptic numbers ("438 5th Ave LLC", "ABC Holdings LLC"). To trace whether a "new owner" is actually a new economic owner or just an internal restructuring, look at:

• The deed's Consideration field — $0 or nominal usually means an internal transfer.
• The deed type — "Bargain & Sale" or "Quitclaim" with $0 consideration is almost always an internal restructuring.
• Whether the same prep attorney appears across multiple recent transfers — same firm, same date, multiple LLCs is a tell.

Five ACRIS gotchas to know

1. Recording delay. A signed deed can take weeks to appear on ACRIS. The newest sale on the dataset may be 30-90 days old.
2. Block/lot reassignments. When DOF re-numbers a block (rare but it happens), ACRIS keeps the old records under the old BBL and new ones under the new BBL.
3. Condo BBLs. A condo unit has its own BBL. Searching the building BBL won't return individual unit deeds. You need each unit BBL separately.
4. Index errors. Older paper-indexed records sometimes have typos in party names. Try variant spellings if a known transfer doesn't appear.
5. Document images can be huge. A 200-page mortgage assignment is normal for commercial buildings. Patience.

Get the ACRIS picture without doing the work

Every NYC Property Audit Pro report includes the deed and mortgage history pulled from ACRIS, with dollar amounts, recording dates, and any active liens flagged separately: run an audit on your address →