How do I find out who owns an abandoned house?
To find out who owns the property, you can do one of several things: (1) Research it yourself. Many cities and counties have tax and property records online. Do an online search. For example, if you lived in Fairfax County, Virginia, search “Fairfax County VA tax assessor.” Just substitute your own city/county and state. In virtually all cases, that’ll get you to the right department. Then there’s usually an option to search the property records online. And almost always you can search by address. So you just plug the address in, click “Enter,” and it’ll pull up the property card or record. (2) Call a Realtor. A Realtor will have access to the tax records, and can do it for you. It won’t cost anything. Once you’ve done that, you do need to know how much the property is worth. Ask a Realtor to do a CMA (competitive market analysis) to determine the property’s value. Again, there’s no cost. Then, finally, based on that information, contact (or have your Realtor contact) the owner and mak
