How I find these properties, and what I will not do

Every property I work on is found through public records. Nothing else.

The records I use are ones any person could look up themselves:

• County register of deeds indexes, to trace the chain of title and find where it breaks
• Recorded death certificates, to confirm when an owner died
• Probate court dockets and case records, to see whether an estate was opened, who was appointed, and whether it has been closed
• County delinquent tax and forfeiture rolls, to see where a property sits in the tax timeline
• Published obituaries, to understand family relationships and locate heirs

That is the complete list. I do not use skip tracing services. I do not buy data from data brokers. I do not use social media to research families. I do not use credit header data or any information that is not part of the public record a person could pull themselves.

Commitments I keep

These are self-imposed limits. They are how I have decided to do this work, and I hold myself to them.

• I will never claim there is a problem with your title that I have not verified in the county or court record.
• I will tell you exactly which document I am looking at and where you can pull it yourself.
• I do not bid at tax auctions. The point is to resolve these before an auction happens.
• I do not knock on doors.
• If someone has been appointed to represent an estate, I deal with that person, not around them to other family members.
• I will not contact a family within roughly ninety days of a death.
• If you tell me you are not interested, that is the end of it and you will not hear from me again.

If you received a letter from me and want to verify any of this, I welcome the question. The records I relied on are yours to see, and I will point you to them directly.