# Digging in to property ownership in Cook County Chicago Cityscape has information about over 1.9 million properties in Cook County, including who's responsible for paying the property taxes (the "taxpayer"). We believe that for the majority of properties this taxpayer is also the owner, but sometimes you come across a property with too little or no information to determine the property owner. This tutorial will walk you through the steps to determine the true owner. Examples of too little or missing information include: - The property is [[Tax-exempt properties|tax exempt]], so there is no taxpayer and thus the county taxing authorities don't need to keep a record of who to send a non-existent tax bill to. - The taxpayer has an ambiguous name ("Taxpayer of" is very common) - The taxpayer's mailing address is a P.O. Box. ## Find the owner To get started you'll need the PIN (property identification number, a 14-digit code) of the property in question. This demonstration will use the PIN 20-16-414-023-0000, an unclassified property that has "Taxpayer of" as the taxpayer name. ### Using Chicago Cityscape 1. Search for the PIN and obtain the PIN-based Property Report. 2. Once the Property Report loads, scroll to the table of contents and select "Property & ownership info". 3. The Property Report will automatically scroll to the "Property & ownership info" section. 4. In the middle column is a section called "Taxpayer info". This will show the latest name for the person or organization responsible for paying property taxes, which is most often the same as the owner. 5. In the rightmost column is a section called "Recordings & title info". Look for the most recently-recorded deed and select its link to find the owner name in the Cook County Clerk's database. [[Recordings|Learn more about recordings]] and [[Title search|title searching]]. ### Using the Clerk's database After you have the PIN, follow these steps to find the owner of the property (this is best done on a computer or tablet): 1. Access the [Cook County Clerk's Office Record of Deeds Search](https://ccrd.cookcountyclerkil.gov/i2/default.aspx) database. It will look like *Screenshot 1*. 2. In the "Property Identification Number (PIN)" fields, enter the PIN into the five boxes (two numbers in the 1st box, the next two numbers in the 2nd box, the next three numbers in the 3rd box, the next three numbers in the 4th box, and the next four numbers in the 5th box). 3. Select the "Search" button. In a couple of seconds, the database will pull up recorded documents associated with that PIN. 4. Review the list of documents. Locate the most recent deed-type document (the first document in the table is the most recent recording). A deed is a document that establishes ownership. The "1st Grantee" in the first deed-type document is likely the owner. 5. In the example PIN of 20-16-414-023-0000, the property was transferred from "Creative Housing LLC" to "Norfolk Southern Railway Co". Click the first document number to review a copy of that recorded document (you may need to disable the web browser's popup blocker beforehand or on the fly, if the website alerts you). ## Special owner names It's common for properties to be owned by an "LLC" (limited liability company) or "CTLTC". - LLC ownership can be found on the Illinois Secretary of State website. [Look up the company name](https://apps.ilsos.gov/corporatellc/) and then scroll down to the "manager" section. Sometimes LLCs are owned by other LLCs so you will have to perform multiple searches. - CTLTC refers to the Chicago Title and Land Trust Company, a special ownership system that hides the true owner. There are no data sources to determine the true owner.