Manually researching real property interests in Washington.

For a fee, title companies can provide title reports or other abstracts of title interests.  Title companies maintain private databases of information, and employ professional examiners, and thus are able to quickly and efficiently generate reports.  The title company can guarantee the accuracy of the report up to a policy limit. 

The information available to the title company is public record and can be manually researched. Under Washington’s Recording Act, codified at RCW 65.08, each county is required to maintain a system for the public recording and indexing of real property instruments.  Indexing between counties can vary, but at a minimum, each county must maintain a “grantor” and “grantee” index.  This enables examiners to search and closely follow a property’s “chain-of-title.”

Most Washington county recorders now maintain records digitally and enable online searches.  A user can go to the King County recorder’s website, for example, and search and view digitally imaged instruments.  Keep in mind, the recorder only maintains and indexes the instruments that have been recorded; the recorder does not decide the validity of interests.

The county tax assessor serves a different function than the recorder.  The assessor maintains tax rolls for the purpose of assessing and collecting real property taxes. In connection with this function, the assessor often publishes parcel ownership information (the King County assessor’s website, for example, contains viewable ownership information for every tax parcel).  While this ownership information is usually accurate (an explanation as to how the assessor collects this information is beyond the scope of this post), it is not official.  In a quiet title action, the court will rely-upon the recorded “chain-of-title,” not the ownership information published by the assessor. 

In sum, if you want to avoid the expense of a title report, you can manually search title interests maintained by the county recorder.  Ownership information can also be gleaned from the county assessor’s records.