Searching Shelby County Property Records

Property records for Memphis and the rest of Shelby County, Tennessee are recorded with the Shelby County Register of Deeds, and for most searches that office answers most of the question. What it does not answer is the tax picture, which is split across more offices here than in a typical county, and the municipal layer that comes with property inside the Memphis city limits.

A search that stops at the deed records will be accurate and incomplete. Below is where each piece actually lives.

Where the Records Are Held

Three offices carry the bulk of what a title search needs, and they do not share a single index.

The Register of Deeds records deeds, deeds of trust, releases, easements, plats, restrictive covenants and liens filed against the land. Tennessee uses a deed of trust rather than a mortgage, so the instrument securing a loan names a trustee and allows non-judicial foreclosure. The index runs by name and a good deal of it is searchable online.

The courts hold what the Register does not. Circuit and Chancery Court judgments, probate matters in Probate Court, and lis pendens on pending actions. Federal filings sit with the Western District of Tennessee. A judgment becomes a lien on real property in Tennessee when it is properly recorded, so the court file and the land record both have to be read.

The Assessor maintains parcel numbers and assessed values, the Trustee bills and collects county property tax, and delinquent county taxes move to the Clerk and Master for the sale process. Three offices, one tax question.

The Memphis Layer

Property inside the city limits carries a second set of charges, and this is the part out-of-state buyers most often miss.

City property tax is billed separately from county tax, with its own due dates, its own delinquency track and its own office. A parcel can be entirely current with the Trustee and years behind with the city.

Memphis also runs an active code enforcement program through its Environmental Court, and the costs of boarding up, demolishing or clearing a property are charged back to the parcel. On vacant property and anything that has been through a tax sale, these are common and they are not always obvious from the deed records alone.

Unpaid utility service can follow a property in some circumstances, and storm water and sewer fees appear on tax bills rather than in the land records. None of that is exotic. It simply means the recorded picture and the amount owed are two separate inquiries.

What Makes a Shelby County Search Different

A few local features shape how far a search has to reach.

• Tax sales are judicial. Delinquent county property is sold through Chancery Court, and a redemption period follows the sale. Title coming out of that process needs the court file read alongside the deed.
• The city and county merged some functions and not others. Knowing which body levied a charge decides which office can tell you whether it is paid.
• Older Memphis neighborhoods carry long chains. Subdivision plats from the 1910s and 1920s frequently contain restrictions that are still recorded, and reading them requires going back rather than relying on a current owner search.
• Entity ownership is heavy. Large parts of the residential rental stock are held by out-of-state LLCs, and name searches have to cover every variant.

Ordering a Shelby County Search

Give us the property address, the parcel number if you have it, and every name the property may be held under, including entity names and any former names of an individual owner. Tell us whether the property is inside the Memphis city limits, because it changes what has to be checked.

For a purchase or a refinance a current owner search with judgment and lien searches usually fits. Where the property has been through a tax sale, a foreclosure or an estate, a full chain of title search is the safer scope.

A title search reports what was recorded and found in the indexes reviewed, as of the day the work was done. It is not a complete inventory of everything that could be owed on a property, and an empty result does not establish that nothing exists. Amounts owed to a taxing or utility authority come from that authority, and legal conclusions belong to counsel.