ACRIS Deed Search: How to Read NYC Property Records for Title

ACRIS (the Automated City Register Information System) is where you run a NYC deed search: the free online database of documents recorded with the NYC Department of Finance (DOF) Office of the City Register. For property in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, it lets anyone pull up the current deed, every recorded mortgage, the satisfactions that discharged them, and certain recorded liens, with document images, from 1966 to the present.

ACRIS does not cover Staten Island, and it does not show many of the things that matter at a closing: money judgments, lis pendens and mechanic’s liens docketed with the County Clerk, unpaid property taxes and water charges, building violations, and state tax warrants. This guide explains how to read what ACRIS does show, how to tell whether a mortgage is actually satisfied, and where to look for everything else.

What ACRIS covers

ACRIS indexes documents recorded with the Office of the City Register, which records property documents for the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens. Records from 1966 forward are in ACRIS. Records before 1966 are on microfilm and in land records ledgers at the Land Records Research Library in Jamaica, Queens.

Staten Island is separate. Richmond County has no City Register office. Deeds, mortgages and other land records for Staten Island are recorded with and searched at the Richmond County Clerk, which has its own online search of recorded land documents and images. DOF’s own guidance says that to see a recorded Staten Island document you go to the Richmond County Clerk, not ACRIS.

Use the official site at a836-acris.nyc.gov. DOF states that third-party sites such as ACRISasap and ACRIS.com are not approved by DOF.

Key terms

  • BBL (borough, block and lot): the tax parcel identifier for every NYC property. ACRIS indexes real property documents by BBL. Each condominium unit has its own tax lot, separate from the building’s base lot.
  • CRFN (City Register File Number): the recording number DOF assigns to each recorded document. Older documents are identified instead by reel and page.
  • Document ID: the number assigned to a single document when it is prepared for recording. A transaction can contain several documents, each with its own document ID.
  • Party 1 / Party 2: ACRIS lists the parties to each document. On a deed, Party 1 is the grantor (seller) and Party 2 the grantee (buyer). On a mortgage, Party 1 is the borrower and Party 2 the lender.
  • Cross-reference: a field on documents such as satisfactions and assignments that points back to the earlier document they affect, by CRFN, document ID or reel and page.

Step by step: searching a property in ACRIS

  1. Find the BBL. On the ACRIS home page, choose “Find Addresses and Parcels” and enter the street address. DOF’s property information lookup also returns the BBL. For a condo, confirm you have the unit’s lot, not the building’s base lot.
  2. Search by parcel. Choose “Search Property Records,” then “Parcel Identifier (BBL).” Select the borough and enter block and lot. Leave the document class set to all classes and the date range at its widest setting so nothing is filtered out.
  3. Sort the results by recorded date. The result list shows each document’s type, recorded date, parties, amount and CRFN or reel and page. Work from the most recent deed forward.
  4. Open the document detail and the image. The detail view shows the index data: parties, property, amount and cross-references. The image is the recorded document itself. Read the image, not just the index. Index entries can contain errors; the recorded instrument controls.
  5. Run a party name search. Search the current owner’s name, and the seller’s name if you are buying. Some filings, notably federal tax liens and UCC financing statements, are indexed by name and may not appear in a BBL search. Name variations (middle initials, “LLC” vs “L.L.C.”) matter, so try more than one form.
  6. Check older and unusual entries. If the property was subdivided, merged or converted to condominium, the earlier history sits under the old lot numbers. Search those as well.

The document types you will see

ACRIS uses short codes for each document type. DOF publishes the full list (more than 120 codes) as the ACRIS Document Control Codes dataset. These are the ones that matter most for title:

ACRIS code Document What it means for title
DEED Deed Transfers ownership. The most recent DEED names the current record owner.
CORRD / CONDEED Correction deed / Confirmatory deed Fixes or confirms an earlier deed. Read alongside the original.
TODD / RTOD Transfer on death deed / Revocation Names who takes the property at the owner’s death, or cancels that designation.
MTGE Mortgage A loan secured by the property. Open until satisfied.
AGMT Agreement Often a consolidation, extension and modification agreement (CEMA) that combines older mortgages into one lien. Read the image to confirm.
M&CON Mortgage and consolidation A new mortgage combined with existing ones into a single lien.
ASST Assignment, mortgage Transfers a mortgage from one lender to another. The assignee is now the party who must satisfy it.
SAT Satisfaction of mortgage Discharges a mortgage of record.
PSAT / PREL Partial satisfaction / Partial release Discharges only part of the debt or releases only some of the property. The mortgage may remain a lien.
SPRD Mortgage spreader agreement Extends an existing mortgage to cover additional property.
SUBM Subordination of mortgage Changes lien priority between two mortgages.
ASPM Assumption of mortgage A new owner takes over an existing mortgage.
UCC1 / INIC UCC financing statement / Initial co-op UCC1 Security interest in fixtures or, for co-ops, in shares and the proprietary lease.
FL / FTL Federal lien Notice of a federal tax lien (IRS) or other federal lien.
RFL / RFTL Release of federal lien Releases a federal lien.
JUDG Judgment A judgment recorded with the City Register against the property. Not the same as a money judgment docketed with the County Clerk (see below).
CTOR Court order A court order recorded against the property. Read the image to see what it does.
LOCC Lien of common charges A condominium board’s lien for unpaid common charges.
TLS Tax lien sale certificate Unpaid city charges sold in the NYC tax lien sale.
MLEA / EASE Memorandum of lease / Easement Recorded rights of others in the property.

How to tell whether a mortgage is satisfied

Finding a MTGE in ACRIS tells you only that a mortgage was recorded. To know whether it is still a lien of record, match it to a discharge.

Start with the cross-reference. A SAT should cross-reference the mortgage it discharges by CRFN or reel and page. Open the SAT detail and confirm it points to the mortgage you are tracing, not a different loan on the same lot. Confirm on the image that the property described is the same property and that the satisfaction is full, not partial.

Follow the assignments. If the mortgage was assigned (ASST), the satisfaction should come from the last assignee of record. A satisfaction signed by the original lender after it assigned the loan away is a problem a title examiner will raise.

Account for CEMAs. When a refinance uses a CEMA, the old mortgage is not satisfied. It is assigned to the new lender and consolidated with any new-money mortgage under an AGMT. The result is a chain where earlier MTGEs never have their own SAT. They were absorbed into the consolidated lien, and a single satisfaction of the consolidated mortgage discharges all of them. To read this correctly, open the AGMT image and check its schedule of consolidated mortgages against the MTGEs in ACRIS. The mortgage recording tax treatment of supplemental and consolidated mortgages is in Tax Law § 255.

Allow for recording lag. A loan paid off last month may show no SAT yet. Under RPAPL § 1921, the lender must arrange to present the satisfaction for recording within 30 days of payoff, with statutory penalties for delay (with an exemption for lenders making fewer than five mortgage loans a year). For a recent payoff, the payoff letter and proof of payment matter more than the ACRIS record.

If a mortgage has no matching satisfaction and no CEMA explains it, it remains an open lien of record until discharged. Clearing an old or unsatisfied mortgage covers how that is done.

What ACRIS does not show

ACRIS is a record of documents recorded with the City Register. Much of what affects a NYC title is filed somewhere else or not filed at all.

Item Where it is filed or kept In ACRIS?
Money judgments Docketed with the County Clerk of the county where the property sits. The judgment becomes a lien on the debtor’s real property there for ten years (CPLR 5203). No
Notice of pendency (lis pendens), including foreclosure actions County Clerk (CPLR 6511) No
Mechanic’s liens County Clerk (Lien Law § 10), within eight months of the last work, or four months for a single-family dwelling No
NYS tax warrants Since July 1, 2025, filed with the NYS Department of State, and that filing is a lien on the debtor’s real property anywhere in the state. Earlier warrants are liens where docketed with the County Clerk, and the Department of Taxation and Finance still files with county clerks as well, so both places are searched. A warrant creates a lien on real and personal property (same source). No
Federal tax liens City Register for Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx (Lien Law § 240); Richmond County Clerk for Staten Island Yes for the four ACRIS boroughs (document type FL), indexed by taxpayer name
Property taxes and other DOF charges DOF property account (lookup by address or BBL) No
Water and sewer charges NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Unpaid charges can be sold in the tax lien sale. No (a TLS certificate may appear once sold)
DOB violations, OATH/ECB penalties, HPD charges DOB, OATH and HPD systems No
Staten Island documents Richmond County Clerk No
Records before 1966 Land Records Research Library, microfilm and ledgers No

Notice the split between County Clerk and City Register. In the four ACRIS boroughs, deeds and mortgages go to the City Register, but money judgments, lis pendens and mechanic’s liens go to the County Clerk of New York, Kings, Queens or Bronx County. A clean ACRIS search says nothing about those. Building violations and HPD charges are covered in DOB violations, OATH/ECB summonses and HPD charges at a NYC closing.

Issues no public record shows

Some title problems are not recorded anywhere:

  • Forged or unauthorized deeds. ACRIS shows what was recorded, not whether the signature was genuine or the signer had authority.
  • Rights of people in possession. Tenants, occupants and adverse possessors can have rights that appear only on inspection.
  • Survey matters. Encroachments and boundary discrepancies show up on a survey, not in the record.
  • Unrecorded instruments. Contracts, leases and easements that were never recorded can still bind a buyer with notice of them.
  • Estate and authority issues. A deed from an heir or executor depends on probate or administration records in Surrogate’s Court, not ACRIS. See Buying or selling from an estate.

An ACRIS search is not a title search. A title examination covers the County Clerk dockets, tax and municipal searches, bankruptcy and patriot searches, and a review of the full chain of title, and the title policy then insures against defined risks that no search can rule out. See Who does what at a New York closing.

Using ACRIS before and after a deal

Before a contract. Confirm the seller is the record owner, see the open mortgages, and spot anything unusual (a recent correction deed, a court order, a lien of common charges) before ordering a title report.

After closing. Check that your deed and any satisfaction of the seller’s mortgage were recorded and indexed to the right BBL.

Ongoing. DOF’s free Notice of Recorded Document service emails or mails a registered owner, usually the day after recording, when a deed, mortgage, satisfaction, judgment or other listed document is recorded against the property. Registration is per property. If you see a document you do not recognize, DOF directs you to call 311 (212-639-9675 from outside NYC). The City states it assumes no liability for recording documents later found to be fraudulent.

Official sources

Related guides

Korvane Title is preparing to launch in New York. It is not licensed as a title insurance agent and does not accept title orders. Content on this site is general information, not legal advice.