To do a title search on property in Texas, go to the county clerk’s office in the county where the land sits, pull up the grantor-grantee index, and trace the property backward from the current owner through each prior owner, checking every name for liens, easements, and unreleased mortgages along the way. The records are public, most counties post them online for free, and the search itself costs nothing beyond your time.1Dallas County. Dallas County Clerk Recording Division The point is to find problems before closing, when there’s still time to fix them or walk away.
What to Gather Before You Search
The county index is organized by name, not by street address, so the address on the mailbox will get you almost nowhere on its own. You need two things: the property’s legal description and the names of the current and prior owners.
The legal description identifies the land in the way the records system recognizes it. For a subdivision lot, that means a lot number, block number, and subdivision name. For rural or unplatted land, it’s a metes and bounds description tracing the boundary by compass directions and distances.2Legal Information Institute. Texas Administrative Code 40 175.4 – Land Description You can pull the legal description from an older deed, a prior title commitment, or the county appraisal district’s website. The Texas Comptroller keeps a directory of every county appraisal district in the state, which is the easiest way to find the right one.3Texas Comptroller. Local Property Appraisal and Tax Information
While you’re on the appraisal district site, note the current owner’s full legal name and, if it’s shown, the previous owner’s name. Those are the search terms you’ll actually type into the county clerk’s index.
Where Texas Keeps the Records
Under the Texas Constitution, the county clerk in each county acts as the county recorder and holds every recorded deed, lien, release, and related document for real property in that county.4State of Texas. Texas Local Government Code 191.001 – County Recorder, Seal, General Duties These are public records. You can walk into the clerk’s office and read them, and many counties now offer free search portals online.5Fort Bend County. Real and Personal Property To find a county’s portal, search the county’s official government site for “County Clerk” or “Official Public Records.” Viewing is generally free; certified copies usually carry a small fee.
One piece of Texas law makes the recorded search meaningful. An unrecorded deed or mortgage is void against a later buyer who pays value and has no notice of it.6State of Texas. Texas Property Code 13.001 – Validity of Unrecorded Instrument If a claim never made it into the county records, it generally can’t defeat yours as a good-faith purchaser. That’s why the search focuses entirely on recorded documents.
Working the Grantor-Grantee Index
Texas law requires every county clerk to keep an alphabetical cross-index of recorded property documents, organized by grantor (seller) and grantee (buyer) names.7State of Texas. Texas Local Government Code 193.003 – Index to Real Property Records This index is the whole search. You use it in three passes.
First, find the deed into the current owner. Search the grantee index for the current owner’s name until you find the deed that put the property in their hands. Note the date, the grantor’s name, and the recording reference.
Second, walk the chain backward. Take the grantor from that deed, search the grantee index for their name, and find the deed that put the property in their hands. Repeat for each prior owner, going back at least 20 to 30 years on a residential purchase. What you’re building is the chain of title: an unbroken sequence of transfers from one owner to the next. A gap, where ownership can’t be traced from one party to the next, is itself a title defect and has to be cleared before closing.
Third, check what each owner did while they held the property. For every name in the chain, search the grantor index across the years that person owned the property. This is where liens, deeds of trust, easements, and judgments show up: anything the owner signed or that was recorded against them during their ownership period will be indexed under their name as grantor.
What to Look For
Most title searches turn up something. The job is telling minor paperwork from a real problem.
Liens
A lien is a financial claim recorded against the property, and the holder has a right to be paid out of the sale. A current mortgage (recorded as a deed of trust) is expected and normal. The concern is a prior mortgage with no recorded release, which suggests the payoff was never properly documented on the records even if the loan was paid off years ago.
Property tax liens in Texas attach automatically to every property on January 1 each year to secure that year’s taxes, and unpaid property taxes take priority over almost everything else, including mortgage liens.8State of Texas. Texas Tax Code 32.01 – Tax Lien9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6322 – Period of Lien10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6502 – Collection After Assessment Mechanic’s liens from contractors and suppliers, and judgment liens from lawsuits the owner lost, show up the same way and need to be resolved before you take title.
Easements and Deed Restrictions
An easement gives someone else a right to use part of the land for a specific purpose, like a utility corridor or a shared driveway. It doesn’t transfer ownership, but it limits what you can build on the affected area. Deed restrictions, also called restrictive covenants, control how the property can be used, and can dictate anything from permitted activities to building materials and setbacks. Both are recorded, and both travel with the land regardless of who owns it.
Deed Errors and Unreleased Mortgages
Small errors in recorded documents happen constantly: a misspelled name, a garbled legal description, a missing notary block. The most common single problem is an unreleased deed of trust, where the owner paid off the loan but the lender never recorded the release. On paper, the old lender still looks like a claimant. These are usually fixable, but the fix takes time, especially if the original lender has been acquired or dissolved.
When a DIY Search Is Enough, and When It Isn’t
Running the index yourself is realistic for a straightforward residential property with a short, clean chain of title. It’s most useful before you sign a contract, when you want a quick read on whether the title looks clean enough to move forward.
Some situations call for a professional title examiner. Long or tangled ownership histories, rural tracts with metes and bounds descriptions, inherited property with possible heir disputes, and anything involving a prior foreclosure or tax sale all reward a trained eye. If you’re buying with a mortgage, a professional examination is already built into the transaction: Texas title companies perform a full examination as part of issuing title insurance, and the lender will require it.
One boundary worth knowing: a title search, however thorough, can’t catch everything. Forged documents, unknown heirs, and errors that predate the accessible records slip past even careful examiners. Title insurance covers that gap by paying for losses from defects that existed before closing but weren’t discovered. It’s a separate purchase from the search itself, not a substitute for doing the search.