How to find the heirs of a deceased property owner
To find the heirs of a deceased property owner, work through the public record in order: the deed and tax record show who holds title and who is billed, the probate court file names the personal representative and usually the heirs, and obituaries name the surviving family. Then skip trace each named heir for phone numbers.
Key facts
- Price
- a flat $0.03 a record at any list size from 50 to 100,000 records.
- Unit
- Priced per matched record.
- Minimum order
- 50 records
- Minimum charge
- Minimum charge $0.50 when any record matches.
- Single search
- Single search: $0.10, charged only on a match, paid from prepaid credit ($10 minimum top-up).
- Prepaid credit
- Prepaid credit expires 12 months after your last credit purchase, single search or credit-paid list, and unused credit is refundable on request within 90 days of purchase.
- Free tool
- Check your list free at /tools/skip-trace-csv-checker. Check columns, split addresses and download a fixed CSV in your browser before tracing at $0.03 a record. No account needed.
- Subscription
- None. A list order is paid for on its own by card or prepaid credit.
- Max per order
- 100,000 rows or 50 MB per file
- Output
- Up to 10 phones per owner, each with its line type (mobile, landline or VoIP), plus emails where found
- Sources
- 3 core providers: idiCORE, Enformion and Delvepoint
- Not for
- FCRA uses: credit, insurance, employment or tenant screening
- Prices last changed
- Last updated
The short answer
Heirs are found in records, not in a phone database. The county tells you whether ownership ever changed after the owner died and who pays the tax bill now. The court tells you whether an estate was opened and who runs it. The obituary tells you who the family is. Only once you have names does a skip trace help, because a skip trace looks up contact details for a person you name; it cannot tell you who the heirs are.
Step 1
Read the deed and the tax record
Step 2
Search the probate court records
Step 3
Read obituaries and published notices
Step 4
Use an heir search service when the record runs out
Step 5
Skip trace each named heir
Two meanings of "heir property"
- Finding the heirs: the everyday sense, and the one this guide answers. The owner of record has died and you need to know which living people now have a claim to the property, and how to reach them.
- Heirs' property: the legal sense. The American Land Title Association describes it as real estate that official records still show as owned by someone who has died, sometimes for generations, because ownership was never passed on through a will, a court proceeding or other estate planning (ALTA, What Is Heirs' Property? (PDF) (opens in a new tab), checked ). The result is several relatives sharing one property without clear title (ALTA, Heirs' Property (opens in a new tab)).
The two overlap. When no estate was ever opened, the steps below still identify the family, but the title question they leave open belongs to an attorney or a title company.
Step 1: Read the deed and the tax record
Start with the parcel, searched by property address or parcel number on the county's register of deeds (or recorder) and its assessor or tax office website. Two records matter.
- The deed history. The last deed names who took title. Look for anything recorded after the owner's death: a deed from the estate or its personal representative, an affidavit of heirship, or a transfer on death deed. Any of these may name the new owner or the heirs outright.
- Who is billed. The tax record shows the name and mailing address the bill goes to. When the owner of record has died, the bill is often addressed to "the estate of" the owner, in care of a family member, or sent to a relative's address. That person is usually the first living name you get, and often an heir or the person handling the estate.
If the record shows an LLC or a trust instead of a person, the heirs question becomes an entity question: how to skip trace an LLC-owned property.
Step 2: Search the probate court records
Estates are handled by a county court, usually in the county where the person lived when they died. Its name varies by state: probate court, surrogate's court, orphans' court, or the clerk of a circuit or superior court. Search the deceased owner's name; many counties offer an online case search, and the clerk's office can search for you if yours does not.
An estate file typically holds:
- The will, if there was one, naming who receives what.
- The petition and the court's appointment (letters testamentary or letters of administration), naming the personal representative, also called the executor or administrator.
- A list of heirs or interested persons, often with mailing addresses. Where there was no will, state law decides who inherits, and this list is where the court records it.
No file means no estate was opened, which is common for families who never needed one to keep living on or using the land. That is the situation the legal sense of heirs' property describes, and it is where steps 3 and 4 carry more of the weight.
Step 3: Read obituaries and published notices
An obituary is the family tree the family wrote themselves. It usually names the surviving spouse, children, siblings and sometimes grandchildren, often with the cities they live in. Search the owner's name on funeral home websites, the local newspaper's archive and obituary aggregators, and match the date and town to the owner of record.
Where a state requires a published notice to creditors, it appears in a local newspaper after an estate is opened and names the personal representative, usually with an address for claims. It confirms step 2 when the court file is hard to reach online.
Treat obituary names as leads, not conclusions. An obituary does not say who inherited the property; the will, the court or state law does.
Step 4: Use an heir search service when the record runs out
When the owner died years ago, no estate was opened and the obituary is thin or missing, the job becomes genealogy: birth, marriage and death records, census entries and family histories, followed generation by generation. Three kinds of help exist:
- A probate or real estate attorney, who can open an estate, locate heirs as part of it, and tell you what the state requires before the property can be sold.
- A title company, which decides what it needs to insure a sale from the heirs.
- A professional heir search firm (forensic genealogists), which builds the family tree and documents each heir's relationship to the owner. Fee arrangements vary by firm; ask for the terms in writing.
This guide names no firm, because none has been tested here.
The steps side by side
Where each step looks, what it can tell you, and what it cannot. Record names vary by state; the table uses the common ones.
| Step | Where to look | What it tells you | What it does not |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Read the deed and the tax record | County register of deeds or recorder; assessor or tax office | Who holds title, any deed or affidavit recorded after the death, who the tax bill goes to | Who the heirs are when nothing was recorded after the death |
| 2. Search the probate court records | The county court that handles estates, by the deceased owner's name | Whether an estate was opened, the personal representative, and usually the heirs with addresses | Anything, if no estate was ever opened |
| 3. Read obituaries and published notices | Funeral home sites, newspaper archives, notices to creditors | The surviving family and where they live; the personal representative, from a notice | Who legally inherited the property |
| 4. Use an heir search service when the record runs out | A probate attorney, a title company or an heir search firm | A documented family tree, and what the state requires before a sale | Free answers: this is paid professional work |
| 5. Skip trace each named heir | A bulk skip trace, with one named person per row | Phone numbers with line type, and emails where they exist, for each named heir | Who the heirs are: it traces names you supply |
Where a skip trace fits
A skip trace does not find heirs, and Skipmatch has no relatives search or family-tree feature. It takes a person's name and address and returns ways to reach that person. So it comes last, after steps 1 to 4 have given you names.
- Put one person per row: the personal representative and each named heir, not the deceased owner. Contact data filed under someone who has died is likely out of date.
- Give each person their own last known street address, city, state and ZIP, from the court file's list of heirs or the tax bill's mailing address, not the property address. An obituary's city helps you confirm you have the right person, but it is not an address on its own.
- Keep the deceased owner's name (label that column "Decedent"), the parcel number and the case number as extra columns; they come back unchanged beside the results. At the upload step, check that the name column mapped is the heir's, not the deceased owner's, before you pay.
- The result gives up to 10 phone numbers per person, ranked and labelled mobile, landline or VoIP, plus emails where they exist and a match flag on every row. Some rows come back with none.
Skipmatch is bulk only: orders are 50 to 100,000 rows, priced per matched record ($0.03 a record at any list size). The smallest order, 50 rows, is at most $1.50. Minimum charge $0.50 when any record matches. For one estate with a handful of heirs, a free people-search lookup is the better tool: how to find a property owner's phone number covers it. For a list of estates, probate list skip tracing covers whose name to upload.
Contacting heirs respectfully
The people you are trying to reach have lost a family member, sometimes recently. Some practical ground rules:
- While an estate is open, the personal representative typically handles its property, so they are usually the right first contact.
- Say who you are and why you are writing in the first sentence, and give them time to answer.
- Honor every request to stop, by any channel, the first time it is made.
- Calls and texts fall under the TCPA, state telemarketing rules and the do-not-call registries; scrub the numbers before you dial.
Every Skipmatch account accepts the permissible-use terms before its first order. This guide is general information, not legal advice; inheritance and title rules differ by state.
Questions
How do I find out who inherited a property?
What is heirs' property?
Where are probate records kept?
Can a skip trace find heirs?
Can I buy a property from heirs without probate?
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