The Best Way to Get Free Public Records
- 1). Stop at the town, village or city hall. Available documents may include: Property tax bills, assessment records, code enforcement reports, water and sewer customer listings, and daily incident/arrest reports from the municipal police department. Local justice courts handle traffic cases, misdemeanor crimes and felony arraignments, all of which are activities documented in public records. Salary information for municipal employees is also public information,but additional personnel records and internal memos between employees and departments are not, according to Sunshine Review (Reference 1, http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Freedom_of_Information_Act).
- 2). Visit the county office complex. Its record holdings are vast, but an employee in the clerk's office can sort it out. The clerk's office maintains property transaction records and deed books. The health department/office of vital statistics has birth and death certificates. The tax mapping/real property office has information on land and property ownership. The board of elections maintains voter registration rolls. The justice system - district attorney, public defender's office and court house (felony cases and lawsuits) - maintains volumes of records. Some counties or departments within a county provide a few pages of copies free of charge before any fees kick in, but all records can be viewed for free and copied by hand.
- 3). Access state web sites. If a public document is not included on the appropriate department's page, there should be contact information for obtaining it. Online state Uniform Commercial Code listings pertain mostly to businesses and include information on liens, major transactions and loans. Some state's also have search functions for locating prison inmates or registered sex offenders. State court case information is also accessible online.