Data Accuracy and No Warranty

What this data is for

This site exists so that anybody can look at county parcel data without paying for it — to learn how it is structured, to see what a county publishes, to teach with it, to research with it, to test software against it, to get oriented before doing the real work.

It is provided for reference and educational purposes only. It is not fit for any purpose where being wrong would cost somebody something, and it must not be relied on for:

• determining a property boundary, a corner, an acreage, an easement or an encroachment;
• determining ownership, title, or any legal or equitable interest in land;
• a purchase, a sale, a lease, financing, an appraisal, a valuation, an insurance decision, a tax appeal or any legal filing;
• emergency response, dispatch, engineering, construction, siting or utility work;
• establishing or demonstrating regulatory or environmental compliance;
• any decision, by you or by anyone else, where an error could cause loss.

For those things you need a licensed land surveyor, a title professional and the county's official records. Verifying against the official record before you rely on anything is your responsibility.

Where it comes from

Every dataset here originates with a county government — an assessor, appraisal district, recorder, clerk or GIS department. Some copies come from an archive of county files collected over the years. Some are contributed by users of this site.

We are not a county, an assessor, a recorder, a surveyor, a title company or a government agency, and we are not affiliated with any of them. We republish what we received. We did not create the records and we cannot correct them.

It is a point in time, not a live feed

Each dataset is dated. A file dated 2019 shows the county as its own system recorded it in 2019 — assuming the county's record was right at the time.

Since then, parcels have been split and combined, sold, rezoned, revalued and renumbered. Owners have died, married, moved and transferred property into trusts. Nothing on this site updates itself, and there is no live connection to any county. Even the newest file here is older than the county's record.

It is not survey-grade and it determines no boundary

Parcel geometry in a county GIS is a cartographic representation. It is compiled from deeds, plats, subdivision maps, tax maps and aerial imagery, fitted together at a scale chosen for administering property tax. Positional accuracy varies by county, by neighbourhood and sometimes by parcel, and the county rarely publishes what it is.

A parcel polygon on this site does not establish a boundary, a corner, a right of way, an easement, a setback, an encroachment or an acreage. It is not a survey, it is not a substitute for one, and it is not admissible as one. Only a land surveyor licensed in that state can locate a boundary on the ground.

Acreage and area figures carry the same warning. An acreage field is usually a deeded or assessed figure, and a figure computed from the polygon is a measurement of the drawing rather than of the land.

It is not evidence of ownership or title

Owner names and legal descriptions here are assessment and mapping data. They are not a title search, a title opinion, a title commitment or title insurance, and they do not prove who owns anything.

Assessment records lag conveyances, sometimes by a year or more, and they routinely omit the things that matter most to a title question: mortgages, liens, judgments, easements, restrictive covenants, mineral and water rights severances, leases, life estates, rights of survivorship, probate and intestate transfers, boundary agreements, adverse possession and anything unrecorded.

If a question turns on who owns something, the answer is in the county's recorded documents and in a title search — not here.

The county's record governs

Where this site and the county disagree, the county is right and this site is wrong. That is true even when the file here is newer, even when it looks more complete, and even when the county's own site is harder to use.

Every county page here links to the source. Use it.

Completeness, fields and scores

• No cross-county normalisation. There is no national parcel schema, and we do not invent one. Counties disagree about what a parcel identifier is called, what an owner field contains and which columns exist at all. We publish each dataset with the schema it arrived with.
• A field existing does not mean it is populated. Columns are often empty, partly filled, or filled with placeholder text.
• Quality and completeness scores are automated estimates. They describe what our checks measured about a file. They are not a judgement about whether the data is true.
• Verification is automated too. Our checks catch obvious problems — data from the wrong county, impossible geometry, dates that contradict a claimed vintage. They do not prove that a dataset is authentic, complete or current. A dataset marked as verified can still be wrong.
• Some datasets are explicitly unverified. Community uploads that pass the automated checks but have no reference copy to compare against are published with that uncertainty stated on the page. Read the label.
• Coverage is uneven. Many counties have nothing here at all, and the ones that do have whatever vintage happened to be available.

County terms and redistribution

Some counties attach conditions to the use or redistribution of their records — attribution, restrictions on commercial use, prohibitions on using the records to build a mailing list, or a licence that has to be signed.

Those conditions come from the county and bind you whether or not they appear on this site. Publishing a file here is not a representation that the originating county permits any particular use of it, and we cannot grant rights we do not hold. Check with the county before you redistribute or resell anything.

Personal information in the files

Parcel records contain owner names and mailing addresses because state law makes property ownership public. If that is your name, or if you handle this data and want to know where we stand, the Privacy Policy explains it and the removal page is how to ask us to act.

No warranty

ALL DATA, FILES, METADATA, SCORES, MAPS AND OTHER MATERIAL ON THIS SITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, FREE PARCEL DATA DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, ACCURACY AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE MAKE NO REPRESENTATION THAT ANY DATASET IS ACCURATE, COMPLETE, CURRENT, AUTHENTIC OR SUITABLE FOR ANY PURPOSE.

WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OF ANY KIND ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE, THIS SITE OR ANYTHING OBTAINED FROM IT. YOU USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK AND YOU ASSUME THAT RISK IN FULL. Section 12 of the Terms of Use sets out the full limitation of liability, and it applies to everything on this page.

Nothing on this site is legal, surveying, appraisal, title, tax, engineering or other professional advice, and nothing here creates a professional relationship between us.

Found something wrong?

Tell us — legal@freeparceldata.com. We would rather take a bad dataset down than leave it up. If you are signed in, the report button on a dataset page is faster and it pays credits when a reviewer agrees with you.