The Automated City Register Information System, run by the NYC Department of Finance. It holds property documents — deeds, mortgages, assignments, satisfactions and more — recorded with the Office of the City Register from 1966 onward, and it is free to search.

Are Staten Island property records in ACRIS?

No. The City Register covers Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. Staten Island — Richmond County — records its property documents with the Richmond County Clerk instead, so a Staten Island deed will not be found through an ACRIS search.

What do grantor and grantee mean on a deed?

The grantor is the party transferring the interest — in a sale, the seller. The grantee is the party receiving it, the buyer. They are printed in that order on the document and are the two fields most often read the wrong way round.

Does the price on a deed mean what the building sold for?

Usually, but not always. The recorded consideration can be a nominal amount — one dollar is common — when the transfer is a gift, a transfer between related entities, or a correction of an earlier deed. A nominal figure is a signal to read the document type rather than a statement about market value.

What does a mortgage satisfaction mean?

That a recorded mortgage has been paid off and discharged. A satisfaction recorded against an earlier mortgage tells you the debt is gone; a mortgage with no satisfaction after it is, on the face of the record, still outstanding.

How to Read an ACRIS Deed and Mortgage

The deed is the document that answers who owns a building, and it is public, free and searchable. It is also written in a vocabulary that hides the answer from anyone reading it for the first time. This is how to read one — and how to read the mortgage recorded beside it, which is often the more revealing document.

What ACRIS is, and the boroughs it does not cover

ACRIS is the Automated City Register Information System, run by the NYC Department of Finance. It carries property documents recorded with the Office of the City Register from 1966 onward. Anything older is on paper at a borough office.

One limit catches people out constantly: the City Register covers four boroughs, not five. Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens record with the City Register. Staten Island records with the Richmond County Clerk, which is a separate office with its own system. A Staten Island deed is not missing from ACRIS; it was never filed there.

The two names, and which is which

Every transfer document has a grantor and a grantee.

Grantor — the party giving up the interest. In a sale, the seller.
Grantee — the party receiving it. In a sale, the buyer.

Getting these backwards inverts the entire history of a building, and it is the single commonest mistake. A useful mnemonic: the grantor is the one the property is going from.

On a mortgage the same two roles appear with different meanings — the borrower grants the security interest, so the property owner is the grantor and the lender is the grantee. The names do not tell you which kind of document you are holding; the document type does.

The document type is the first thing to read

ACRIS separates documents into classes, and the class changes what the document means:

DEED — a transfer of ownership. The one that changes who owns the building.
MORTGAGE — a loan secured on the property.
ASSIGNMENT OF MORTGAGE — the loan was sold to another lender. Ownership of the building did not change.
SATISFACTION OF MORTGAGE — the loan was paid off.
UCC filings, agreements, corrections — everything else, much of it administrative.

A long list of recorded documents is not a long list of sales. Most of it is usually financing and its housekeeping.

The price, and when it is not a price

A deed records a consideration — the stated amount for the transfer. Most of the time it is the sale price. Sometimes it is not, and the difference is important:

One dollar, or ten dollars. A nominal consideration, typical of a gift, an inheritance, a transfer between two entities with the same beneficial owner, or a deed correcting an earlier one.
A figure that looks far below market. Often a transfer into an LLC as part of a restructuring rather than an arm's-length sale.

So a building "selling" for a dollar has usually not been sold at all. It has been moved. Tracing that pattern is the subject of tracing NYC landlord LLCs.

Two dates, and they are not the same

A recorded document carries a document date — when the parties signed — and a recorded date — when the City Register filed it. Weeks or months can separate them, and occasionally years. For "when did this change hands", the document date is the event; for "what did the public record show on a given day", the recorded date is the one that counts.

Reading the mortgage beside the deed

The mortgage recorded on or about the same day as a deed tells you how the purchase was financed, and comparing the two numbers is the most informative thing a lay reader can do with ACRIS. A deed for a large sum with no mortgage beside it was a cash purchase. A mortgage close to the consideration was a highly leveraged one.

Then look at what came afterwards. A mortgage with no satisfaction recorded against it is, on the face of the record, still outstanding. A chain of assignments means the debt has been traded between lenders — common, and not in itself a sign of anything. Several mortgages recorded in quick succession against the same lot is a pattern worth reading carefully.

What the record cannot tell you

ACRIS shows what was recorded, which is not the same as what is true. An unrecorded interest does not appear. A deed into an LLC gives you the LLC's name and nothing about the people behind it — for that you need the HPD registration, which names a head officer and a managing agent for buildings that must register. That combination is the whole method in how to look up your NYC landlord.

And a document being on file is not a title search. Reading ACRIS tells you what the register holds; it does not tell you that the chain of title is good, that there are no competing claims, or that a lien has been properly discharged. That is a job for a title company and a lawyer.

Every recorded document for a building, with its parties, dates and amounts, is listed on the building's page on this site.

General information about public records, not legal, financial or title advice. Sources: NYC Department of Finance — ACRIS and the Office of the City Register, records from 1966 onward for Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens; Richmond County Clerk for Staten Island property records. Checked 8 August 2026.