Find Your Landlord

Find Your Landlord

Learn how to find who really owns your rental property — and how to reach them.

Why Find the Owner?

There are several situations where communicating directly with the owner of the property is the key to good results: anything from getting past the little people with power managing the unit to suing the landlord directly or negotiating in person at their home. They can abuse you indirectly, and order the managers to refuse to identify who they are, but the buck stops at the owner. The owner can fire the managers. The owner pays out of pocket. You can only sue the owner in most instances, because the managers are just agents of the owner with no accountability to you.

Who Owns the Property?

You may think you know who the owner is, but you may have been lied to. You may know a name but not that he or she is the managing member of the LLC, or the trustee of the trust, or the president of the corporation that is the legal owner. A trust, like a revocable living trust, is run by its trustees, so the owner is "XXX, trustee of the YYY trust," not the individual person.

Who owns the property is no secret — quite the opposite. To become the owner of property, the buyer has to record a deed in the County Recorder's Office, to tell all the world who the owner is. It is public record. In most cases, the buyer has a loan secured by a Trust Deed, where both the loan and Trust Deed are signed by the same person. Before the deed can be recorded, the buyer has to inform the County Tax Assessor of who the new taxpayer is, and where to send the bill, and if that changes, the new address. Therefore, the Tax Assessor has updated information on where the owner is. If you have a friend in real estate, they can quickly and inexpensively print out the deed and trust deed, and even the chain of title.

Using the County Tax Assessor

Go online to the County Tax Assessor for your county, to the webpage to pay your property tax. It asks for the street address which you put in, and it gives you a parcel number. These are the same numbers used by Title Companies and the Recorder. Write this number down and use it for your other searches.

The Assessor page is updated to reflect who the Assessor thinks is the owner and who is being billed for property taxes. These are the same entity, so you know the name and address of the owner. They may not be where the owner actually lives, but they will get mail there. You can also find out all about the property in the process: the year it was built, the size, the number of units, and lots of other information you can use in court.

Using the County Recorder

If you know the parcel number, you can go to the County Recorder's website and look up all the documents recorded on that parcel. These include the latest deed, which gives you the owner's name and sometimes their address, and any trust deeds (loans) and who the lenders are. It's all public record. Some counties charge a small fee to view or download the documents, but many provide the basic information for free.

The deed will tell you the exact legal name of the owner — whether it's a person, an LLC, a corporation, or a trust. This is the name you need when you file a lawsuit or send a legal notice.

Other Resources

The California Secretary of State website (bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov) lets you look up any LLC, corporation, or limited partnership registered in California. If your landlord is a business entity, you can find their agent for service of process — the person legally designated to receive lawsuits and legal notices on behalf of the company.

If you have a friend in real estate, they likely have access to title search tools that can quickly pull up the full ownership history, liens, and current owner information. A title company can also run a search for a modest fee.

What to Do with the Information

Once you know the owner's legal name and address, you can serve proper legal notices, file lawsuits against the right entity, and communicate directly with the person who has the power to make decisions. Property managers and on-site managers are often just gatekeepers — going straight to the owner changes the dynamic entirely.

If you're preparing for a lawsuit, having the correct legal name is essential. Suing the wrong entity — or misspelling the name — can delay your case or get it thrown out. Take the time to verify the information from multiple sources (Tax Assessor, Recorder, Secretary of State) before filing anything.