Chain of Title: What It Is and How to Search One

A chain of title is the sequence of recorded transfers that carries ownership of a property from its original source, often a government patent, down to the current owner. Each link is a deed or a court record. The chain holds when the person who received title in one link is the person who conveys it in the next.

California's Department of Real Estate defines it as "a history of conveyances and encumbrances affecting the title from the time the original patent was granted, or as far back as records are available, used to determine how title came to be vested in current owner" (DRE Reference Book glossary).

Pillar, a land research software company, wrote this guide. Each statute, opinion and county page below is linked and was checked on November 13, 2026. Title law differs by state, so every rule here is an example from the state named. This is general information, not legal advice. Confirm anything that matters with a title professional or real estate attorney licensed where the land is.

What is a chain of title?

Two words do most of the work. The grantor gives title and the grantee receives it. In an unbroken chain, every grantee shows up later as a grantor, in the same name, conveying the same land.

The first link is usually a patent, which the California glossary defines as a "conveyance of title to government land." The Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office Records site has images of more than five million federal land title records issued since 1820 for the Public Land States, the states created out of the public domain. You can look up a patent at glorecords.blm.gov.

The links are deeds, probate orders, court judgments and tax or sheriff's deeds. Mortgages, easements, leases and liens are not links in the ownership sequence, but a full title examination follows them too. Some come from an owner's agreement, and others arise by law or court action. You look for them by searching each owner's name, as described below.

Chain of title example

This is an illustration with invented names and dates. It follows one 40-acre tract.

1. 1891, patent. United States to Elias Ward.
2. 1923, warranty deed. Elias Ward to Clara Ward.
3. 1961, personal representative's deed. Estate of Clara Ward to Thomas Ward, after a probate case in the county court.
4. 1988, warranty deed. Thomas Ward to Ridgeline Farms, Inc.
5. 2014, warranty deed. Ridgeline Farms, Inc. to Maria Alvarez, the current owner.

Read it from the bottom: Alvarez got title from Ridgeline, Ridgeline from Thomas Ward, and so on back to the United States. Each recorded transfer connects one owner to the next.

Now change link 3. Suppose there is no probate case, and the 1988 deed is simply signed by "Thomas Ward, sole heir of Clara Ward." The record no longer shows how title left Clara, or whether she had other heirs. That is a break, even though every later deed looks normal.

How to do a chain of title search

Work backward from the current deed to build the chain, then forward through each owner to find what they signed. The standard index is by name. Washington, for example, requires every recording officer to keep "a general index, direct and inverted," with one set of entries alphabetical by grantor and the other by grantee (RCW 65.04.050).

1. Get the current owner's name and deed reference. The assessor's parcel page often lists both: a recording number, or a book and page.
2. Pull the current deed. Note the grantor, the grantee, the date signed, the date recorded and the full legal description. Look for a recital such as "being the same property conveyed by," which names the prior deed.
3. Search the grantor as a grantee. Take the grantor from that deed and search the grantee index for the earlier document that gave them title.
4. Repeat. Each deed gives you the next name. Stop at the patent, or at the search period you choose (see below).
5. Compare the legal description at every link. If it changes, the tract was split, combined or re-described. Our metes and bounds guide shows how to read the calls.
6. Run each owner forward in the grantor index. Search each former owner's name from the date they took title to the date their deed out was recorded, and the current owner's name through the date of your search. Vermont's bar title standards describe that span as the period of record notice for each owner (Standard 2.2, comment 3). You are looking for mortgages, easements, leases, liens and any second deed of the same land. That span does not catch every lien. The same standard says federal liens, Vermont tax liens and judgment liens recorded against a person before they owned the land attach to an interest the person acquires during the lien's effective term, and it adds: "The title examiner must search outside the traditional chain of title to find these liens" (comment 5). Ask a title professional which lien and judgment indexes apply where the land is.
7. Match each mortgage to a release, and check court and probate records wherever the owner's name changes without a deed.
8. Write it down. For each document, list the date, type, grantor, grantee, recording reference and any change in the description. Mark every gap.

The recital in step 2 is a shortcut, not proof. King County, Washington says reading a recent document for mentions of older ones "often works for locating easements" but is "not the most accurate research strategy," because many recorded documents for a parcel are never mentioned in a current one (King County Archives).

Three county search sites and what they have online

• King County, Washington. The recorder says "most documents recorded on or after August 1, 1991 are available online" through its Landmark search. A parcel number search returns only documents from 1997 on. Landmark also indexes documents from 1976 to July 31, 1991 without images, and the grantor-grantee indexes for 1852 to 1975 are on microfilm at the County Archives.
• Wake County, North Carolina. The Register of Deeds says the public has access to its real estate records, "some going back to 1785." Its search portal calls the index "similar to a library card catalogue" and advises searching "all possible spelling variations of names."
• Waukesha County, Wisconsin. The Register of Deeds says documents recorded on or after January 1, 1994 are fully indexed, with images of unindexed documents "going back to the early 1800s," and it offers an online tract index for 1848 to 1994.

Tract indexes

A tract index lists documents by the land they affect, not by name, so you can read one parcel's history in one place. Minnesota requires every county to keep one, arranged by section of land or by lot and block (Minn. Stat. 386.05). In Wisconsin it is the county board's choice: the board "by ordinance may require the register of deeds to keep a tract index" (Wis. Stat. 59.43(12m)).

How far back does a chain of title go?

The chain goes back to the patent or the earliest record. A search often does not. A full search follows every link to that origin. A limited search stops at a "root of title" that a state's marketable title act treats as a starting point. Three examples:

• Florida: 30 years. A person vested with an estate of record for 30 years or more has a marketable record title "free and clear of all claims except the matters set forth as exceptions" (Fla. Stat. 712.02). Section 712.03 excepts, among others, interests preserved by a filed notice, rights of a person in possession, easements in use and anything recorded after the root of title. Under section 712.04, the act does not affect interests the United States or Florida reserved in the patent or deed by which it parted with title.
• Michigan: 40 years, or 20 for minerals. A person with "an unbroken chain of title of record to any interest in land for 20 years for mineral interests and 40 years for other interests" is considered to have marketable record title, but not if the land "is in the hostile possession of another" (MCL 565.101). That title is still subject to interests and defects that appear in the instruments forming the chain. An older claim can be kept alive by recording a notice of claim, and an amendment that took effect September 29, 2025 gave claimants two more years to record one. Section 565.104 lists what the act does not bar, including observable easements, recorded easements for pipes, roads, wires and other facilities, government-owned interests, and oil and gas interests owned by someone other than the surface owner.
• Minnesota: 40 years. Against a source of title that has been of record at least 40 years, no action may be brought on a claim founded on an instrument or event more than 40 years old, unless a sworn notice of the claim was recorded within 40 years (Minn. Stat. 541.023). The section does not bar the rights of anyone in possession or of the federal government, and it generally does not apply to land while it remains registered (Torrens) land. The one exception covers lawsuits that were pending on August 1, 2001 or begun before February 1, 2002, with a notice of the suit recorded before that date.

A statutory period is not automatically the search period. Vermont's bar standard says a search back to an instrument recorded at least 40 years ago is sufficient only if that instrument is a deed, a probate proceeding or a similar basis, and only if nothing found in the period discloses a defect or an outstanding interest. If something does, "the search should be extended beyond the 40-year period" (Standard 2.1).

For land, the exceptions are the reason to search further back. Our deed restrictions guide covers how Florida's act treats old restrictions.

What is a break in the chain of title?

A break is a point where the record does not show how title passed from one owner to the next. A defect is a flaw in a link that exists. The common ones, with a cure and one state's rule for each:

• A death with no probate. The owner dies and the next deed is signed by a relative. In Florida, until a will is admitted to probate there or in the state where the decedent was domiciled, it is "ineffective to prove title to, or the right to possession of, property of the testator" (Fla. Stat. 733.103). Cure: a probate or heirship proceeding. Texas also gives weight to a recorded affidavit of heirship that was legally executed, acknowledged or sworn to before an officer authorized to take the acknowledgment or oath, and certified by that officer. In an heirship proceeding or a title suit, a court must receive it as prima facie evidence of the family facts it states once it has been of record for five years or more in the deed records of the Texas county where the property is when the suit begins, or where the decedent was domiciled or had a fixed residence at death. Anyone interested may still prove the true facts, and the affidavit does not affect the rights of an omitted heir or a creditor (Tex. Estates Code 203.001).
• A name variance. Title goes in as "Catherine A. Moore" and comes out as "Kate Moore Jensen." Cure: a recorded affidavit or a correction deed. Michigan lets a person who knows the facts and is competent to testify to them in court record an affidavit, in the county where the land is, stating facts about the "name, residence, identity," marital status or heirship of parties named in deeds (MCL 565.451a).
• A wild deed. A deed from someone the record does not show as an owner. See the next section.
• A forged deed. New York's highest court says "a forged deed is void ab initio, meaning a legal nullity at its inception," and that "a claim against a forged deed is not subject to a statute of limitations defense" (Faison v. Lewis, 2015). Cure: a deed from the true owner or a court judgment. In New York, time does not fix it.
• An unacknowledged or defectively signed deed. Cure: a correction deed, or a curative statute. In Florida, five years after recording, a deed from the owner takes its purported effect despite a missing seal or witness or a defective or absent acknowledgment, "in the absence of fraud, adverse possession, or pending litigation" (Fla. Stat. 95.231).
• An unreleased mortgage. The loan was paid but no release was recorded. Cure: a recorded release from the lender. Massachusetts also treats an old mortgage as discharged 35 years after recording if it states no term, or 5 years after its stated term or maturity date, unless an extension, or an acknowledgment or affidavit that the mortgage is not satisfied, was recorded before that period ran out (G.L. c. 260, § 33).
• A tax deed. The county sells the land for unpaid taxes and the prior owner never signs anything. In Florida, with stated exceptions, "no right, interest, restriction, or other covenant shall survive the issuance of a tax deed" (Fla. Stat. 197.552). Cure: a quiet title action, which Florida allows the tax deed holder to bring against the former record owner (Fla. Stat. 65.081), or time. Once a Florida tax deed has been issued for four years, the former owner may bring no action. That bar does not apply if the property was in the legal owner's actual possession when the tax deed issued and the owner, or someone claiming under the owner, stayed in actual possession for a year afterward and before an action to eject them began (Fla. Stat. 95.192).

What is a wild deed?

A wild deed is a recorded deed that sits outside the chain, so a normal search never finds it. Vermont's bar standards define a wild instrument as one "executed by a person who is a stranger to the record chain of title at the time such instrument is recorded" (Standard 2.4).

In Sabo v. Horvath, an Alaska owner deeded the same five acres twice. The first buyers recorded before the seller had received his federal patent. The second buyers recorded after it. The Alaska Supreme Court held that "a deed recorded outside the chain of title is a 'wild deed' and does not give constructive notice under the recording laws of Alaska," and the second buyers won (Sabo v. Horvath, 1976).

Indexing can make a deed wild too. In Alabama, a foreclosure deed did not name the record owner, so it was indexed with the fire district that foreclosed as both grantor and grantee, and a search of the grantor-grantee index would not have found it. The Alabama Supreme Court called it a wild deed and held that recording it "did not impart constructive notice" (First Properties v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, 2008).

The fix depends on why the deed sits outside the chain, on state law and on who bought in the meantime. The options are recording the missing deed, re-recording once the grantor holds title, which the Alaska court called less of a burden than making buyers search behind the chain, or a quiet title action, which California's glossary defines as "a court action brought to establish title; to remove a cloud on the title." Re-recording does not undo rights a later buyer has already acquired; in the Alaska case the second buyers won.

Why the order of recording matters

Recording acts decide who wins when one owner deeds the same land twice. States use three kinds, and the wording of the statute shows which.

• Race: North Carolina. A conveyance is not valid against lien creditors or purchasers for value "but from the time of its registration." The first to record wins (G.S. 47-18).
• Notice: Florida. An unrecorded conveyance is not good "against creditors or subsequent purchasers for a valuable consideration and without notice." A later buyer who pays and has no notice wins (Fla. Stat. 695.01).
• Race-notice: Michigan. An unrecorded conveyance is void against "any subsequent purchaser in good faith and for a valuable consideration" whose conveyance is "first duly recorded." The later buyer must both lack notice and record first (MCL 565.29).

So note the recording date of every document, not only the date it was signed.

Chain of title vs title search, abstract and title commitment

• Chain of title. The sequence of owners.
• Title search. The work of finding the chain and everything recorded against each owner.
• Abstract of title. The written result. California's glossary calls it "a summary or digest of all transfers, conveyances, legal proceedings, and any other facts relied on as evidence of title." Our abstract of title guide shows how to read one and which states still rely on them.
• Title commitment. A title insurer's offer to issue a policy after its own search, with requirements and exceptions. It is not a copy of the chain. Our title commitment guide covers how to read one.

Chain of title when you are buying land

Vacant and rural land can have a harder chain than a subdivision lot. It may have passed through one family for generations, been split by deed instead of by plat, or carry reservations from its first sale.

Heirs' property. The USDA describes it as family land "jointly owned by descendants of a deceased person whose estate did not clear probate," whose heirs "do not have a clear or marketable title" (farmers.gov). The Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act sets rules for court partition of family land held this way. Texas adopted it as Property Code chapter 23A. The chapter has its own definition: land held in tenancy in common that, when a partition action is filed, has no agreement in a record binding all the cotenants on how to partition it, where at least one cotenant got title from a relative and one of the statute's three 20% tests is met. The record can be paper or electronic and need not be filed with the county. In a Texas partition case over land that meets the definition, the court sets the fair market value, by appraisal unless an exception applies. If a cotenant asked for a sale, the cotenants who did not may buy out those who did. Before you offer, ask who all the heirs are and what proof the title company will accept.

Severed minerals and old reservations. The BLM says that where surface and mineral rights are owned by different parties, "the mineral rights often take precedence," and that its split-estate policy commonly applies where the surface is privately owned and the minerals are federally held. A reservation can sit in the patent or in a deed older than a 30- or 40-year search. If minerals matter, ask for the search to run back to the patent.

Tracts split by deed. When a seller carves 10 acres out of 80 by a metes and bounds deed, the 10-acre chain runs back into the 80-acre chain. Follow the description, not the parcel number, and look for other pieces the same owner sold. An unrecorded deed will not appear at all. For a site made of several tracts, trace each one. Our land assemblage guide shows how to keep the parcels straight.

Tax-sale titles. If a tax deed is in the chain, ask the title company whether it will insure, and what it needs first.

What to check before an offer

1. Does the seller's name match the grantee on the last recorded deed? Who answers: the recorder's index. If the owner is an LLC, our LLC owner research guide shows how to identify its listed managers, members and past signers. Have the title company or an attorney confirm who has authority to sign for this sale.
2. Is every link back to your chosen starting point of record, with no death, name change or missing deed in between? Who answers: your own trace, then the title company.
3. Does the legal description stay the same, and if not, where did it change? Who answers: the deeds, and a surveyor.
4. Are mortgages released and liens satisfied? Who answers: the recorder's index and the title company.
5. Were minerals, easements or other rights reserved in an old deed or the patent? Who answers: the title company, on a search long enough to reach them.
6. Is there a tax deed, a foreclosure or heirs' property in the chain? Who answers: the title company or your attorney.

Your own trace tells you whether a deal is worth pursuing. It does not insure anything. Order a title commitment before you close, and where the description is old or the lines are uncertain, a boundary survey. A chain of title says who owns the described land. A survey says where that land is.

Where Pillar fits

Pillar's property search shows the owner, mailing address, acreage and last sale from the available parcel record, which gives you a name to start with at the recorder. It is not a title search and does not show recorded documents.

Quick answers

What is a chain of title in simple terms? The list of everyone who has owned a property, in order, with the recorded document that passed title each time.

How do I find the chain of title for my property? Start with your own deed. Search its grantor as a grantee in the county recorder's index, and repeat for each earlier owner.

How far back does a chain of title go? To the original patent or the earliest record. Searches often stop sooner. Florida's marketable title act uses 30 years, and Michigan's and Minnesota's use 40, each with exceptions.

What is a break in the chain of title? A point where the record does not show how title passed from one owner to the next, such as a death with no probate or a missing deed.

What is a wild deed? A recorded deed from someone the record does not show as an owner. Alaska and Alabama courts have held that it gives later buyers no constructive notice.

Is a chain of title the same as a title search? No. The chain is the sequence of owners. The search is the work of finding it and everything recorded against each owner.