How do you find out the history of a property?
How to Look Up the History of Your House
- Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office. The U.S. ...
- Local Assessor's Office. ...
- Census Records. ...
- Local Library or Historical Society Archives. ...
- DiedInHouse.com. ...
- Local History Books. ...
- NETROnline.com. ...
- Historic Aerials. ...
Why was the land ownership so important to the colonists?
Why was land ownership so important to a person? Property rights in land became a liquid source of wealth, to be bought and sold and used to obtain credit. Because land was the most basic resource, its widespread ownership became the catalyst for colonial economic and political development.
How do you find property owned by name?
- If property taxes aren't current, the county may foreclose on the property and sell it at public auction.
- If you go to the website of the tax assessor in the county where the property is located, you may be able to search records online. ...
- In most cases, if you know the street address of the property, you can search the county database that way. ...
How to find history of land?
Search the register
- Search the online register. Search the register by address or location. ...
- Buy copies of the information. You can download online copies of the information for a fee but you cannot use them as proof of ownership.
- Fees
- Rights over adjoining land and property boundaries. ...
- Get historical title registers. ...
Why is land ownership important?
Where was land first claimed?
What is the Soviet system of land ownership?
How does private ownership work?
What would happen if land was not utilized?
What did the primitive tribes do to their land?
Why were boundary boundaries maintained?
See 4 more
About this website

How did land ownership begin in America?
President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862. On January 1, 1863, Daniel Freeman made the first claim under the Act, which gave citizens or future citizens up to 160 acres of public land provided they live on it, improve it, and pay a small registration fee.
When did land ownership begin in America?
1862 -- Homestead Act entitles Western settlers to 160 acres of public land after they reside on and cultivate the land for five years. (On Jan. 1, 1863, Daniel Freeman and 417 others file the first homestead claims.
What is the history of ownership?
Ownership history also includes the following details: Current and Past Debt: most recent and past mortgage amounts, any construction loans, loan origination and maturity dates, the lenders of each loan, and any property liens and foreclosures.
When did the idea of private property start?
17th centuryPrivate property defined as property owned by commercial entities emerged with the great European trading companies of the 17th century.
Why are Americans so obsessed with land?
Land symbolized opportunity to generations of Americans, starting with colonists who never had the chance of owning property in Europe; the vast continent gleamed in their eyes and its frontier drew them west.
What is the origin of property rights?
Property rights come from culture and community. One person living in isolation does not need to worry about property rights. However, when a number of people come together, they need to define and enforce the rules of access to and the benefits from property.
How can I find out who owned a property in the past?
The best place to try searching for the history of the ownership and construction of a house is the local archive for the area in which the house is located. This might be a local borough, city or county archive or a local studies centre or library.
What is ownership in land law?
Proof of land ownership is how one claims the right to land. It is the protection and degree of control a person has over a parcel of land. This is just a way to pinpoint each person's land and a testament by the State that the said person has a property right in the land.
Who originally owned land in the US?
Before the Revolutionary War, the Americas were 13 British colonies. The colonies followed the land laws of Great Britain. Lands were only alienable with the permission of the Crown or overlord.
Why did the Americans want to buy Anselmo's land?
4) Why do you think the Americans wanted to buy Don Anselmo's land? Ans: The little creek ran through the land of Don Anselmo. His orchard was gnarled and beautiful. So the Americans wanted to buy Don Anselmo's land.
Where did property rights come from?
The Constitution protects property rights through the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments' Due Process Clauses and, more directly, through the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause: “nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” There are two basic ways government can take property: (1) outright ...
Why was land ownership so important to the colonists?
Property rights in land became a liquid source of wealth, to be bought and sold and used to obtain credit. Because land was the most basic resource, its widespread ownership became the catalyst for colonial economic and political development.
How did ownership over land first begin? - Quora
Answer (1 of 7): When our first cousins stopped to occupy a cave or hollow tree they took possession of the space. By preventing others joining them in their space they claimed a right of “ownership” - but nothing was written. The other individual(s) occupied similar space or made a primitive she...
Land Ownership and Property Rights - EOLSS
UNESCO – EOLSS SAMPLE CHAPTERS PUBLIC POLICY IN FOOD AND AGRICULTURE - Land Ownership and Property Rights - Montaner Larson, Janelle B. ©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS) LAND OWNERSHIP AND PROPERTY RIGHTS Montaner Larson, Janelle B. The Pennsylvania State University, PO Box 7009, Tulpehocken Road, Reading, PA
Land Ownership and Property Acquisition in the Philippines
Land Ownership and Property Acquisition in the Philippines for Foreigners and Former Filipino Citizens. In general, only Filipino citizens and corporations or partnerships with least 60% of the shares are owned by Filipinos are entitled to own or acquire land in the Philippines.
The Ownership of Land Law - LawTeacher.net
Land law is concerned with the nature of the right involved in the ownership of land, the legal definition is; “Land” includes land of any tenure, and mines and minerals, whether or not held apart from the surface, buildings or parts of buildings (whether the division is horizontal, vertical or made in any other way) and other corporeal hereditaments; also a manor, an advowson, and a rent ...
The Idea Of Owning Land - Context Institute
HOWEVER NATURAL “owning” land may seem in our culture, in the long sweep of human existence, it is a fairly recent invention. Where did this notion come from? What does it really mean t…
Where did land ownership begin?
I would postulate that the concept of land "ownership" began all the way back to the point when creatures from the sea began to inhabit the land. Most animals (and plants, too) are inherently territorial; that is, they claim their own space as theirs and will defend or protect it when challenged. Human "ownership" of land seems simply an extension of that concept.
What does "ownership of land" mean?
Bruce is right; ownership of land means no more than having an enforceable right to eject someone else from it. Nothing more. All other "rights" or "interests" in land derive from this basic principle.
What was the Anglo-Saxon society based on?
In the British Isles I understand that after the Roman regime left (c 400) Anglo Saxon society was based on allodial principles. This in turn was replaced by force with the feudal tenures of the Nor mans.
What are the ways to lose title to land?
There are, in general, 3 ways you might lose title to your land: foreclosure, confiscation, or eminent domain.
What does it mean to lease out subsurface rights?
This also means they may have very specific rights to your land access to obtain these minerals!
What happened when our first cousins stopped to occupy a cave or hollow tree?
When our first cousins stopped to occupy a cave or hollow tree they took possession of the space. By preventing others joining them in their space they claimed a right of “ownership” - but nothing was written. The other individual (s) occupied similar space or made a primitive shelter nearby.
Did hunting grounds happen before agriculture?
Anthropology suggests that defining hunting grounds and ousting (or killing) intruders happened before agriculture. But in any case, agriculture has produced archaeological evidence of land-claiming earlier than we have any written records.
What are the two types of land ownership?
Most people are at best only aware of two choices, two patterns, for land ownership – private ownership (which we associate with the industrial West) and state ownership (as in the Communist East). Both of these patterns are full of problems and paradoxes. Private ownership enhances personal freedom (for those who are owners), ...
What is the basis of animal ownership?
Most animal life has a sense of territory – a place to be at home and to defend. Indeed, this territoriality seems to be associated with the oldest (reptilian) part the brain (see IN CONTEXT, #6) and forms a biological basis for our sense of property. It is closely associated with our sense of security and our instinctual “fight or flight” responses, all of which gives a powerful emotional dimension to our experience of ownership. Yet this biological basis does not determine the form that territoriality takes in different cultures.
What are the rights of ownership?
Ownership Is A Bundle Of Rights The first step is to recognize that, rather than being one thing, what we commonly call “ownership” is in fact a whole group of legal rights that can be held by some person with respect to some “property.” In the industrial West, these usually include the right to: 1 use (or not use); 2 exclude others from using; 3 irreversibly change; 4 sell, give away or bequeath; 5 rent or lease; 6 retain all rights not specifically granted to others; 7 retain these rights without time limit or review.
How does private ownership affect the state?
Private ownership enhances personal freedom (for those who are owners), but frequently leads to vast concentrations of wealth (even in the U.S., 75% of the privately held land is owned by 5% of the private landholders), and the effective denial of freedom and power to those without great wealth. State ownership muffles differences in wealth ...
Why did the nobility push for greater legal/customary recognition of their land rights?
To guard their power, the nobility frequently pushed for greater legal/customary recognition of their land rights. In the less centralized societies and in the occasional democracies and republics of this period, private ownership also developed in response to the breakdown of village cohesiveness.
What does the Ashanti say about land?
The Ashanti of Ghana say, “Land belongs to a vast family of whom many are dead, a few are living and a countless host are still unborn.”. For most of these tribal peoples, their sense of “land ownership” involved only the right to use and to exclude people of other tribes (but usually not members of their own).
What did tribal groups see themselves connected to?
Tribal groups saw themselves connected to particular territories – a place that was “theirs.”. Yet their attitude towards the land was very different from ours. They frequently spoke of the land as their parent or as a sacred being, on whom they were dependent and to whom they owed loyalty and service.
What was the plural term for property rights?
Prior to the French Revolution, the plural term, “ droits de propriété ”, which corresponds to “property rights” in English, was used. Being aware of this is crucial as new ways to ensure land rights are being elaborated.
Is property rights taking hold everywhere?
This article, published in the revue, Etudes Foncières, confirms that “property rights” are taking hold just about everywhere in the world, whereas “ownership” is on its way out. It is an invitation to reflect upon the categories and words that we use everyday.
Who understood the importance of land ownership?
The implications of land ownership as a threat for an authoritarian state and its power structure also were clearly understood by Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Zedong. Individual land ownership, speculation in land, and participation in capital markets based on land as collateral, was widespread in North America.
How many acres of land were claimed by the government in 1920?
For example, some 2,758,818 private claims were made between 1863 and 1920 for 437,932,183 acres of government land, an area larger than Alaska. This land then became small farms that supported the growth of local communities and vibrant agricultural economies.
How did the American grid system affect the 20th century?
The American urban grid system was designed to make city plots available for ownership and trade, just as farm land had been. Large-scale immigration, beginning in the early 20 th century, also was absorbed into comparatively orderly urban blocks and neighborhoods. Core centers of cities became surrounded by rings of suburban developments with privately-owned, single-family homes on town lots. Cities became the center of entrepreneurship and innovation with investments and participation of many. New wealth was generated. There were no vast, haphazard urban squatter camps or favelas as has characterized Latin American cities.
What were the economic structures of Latin America in the early 20th century?
As urban areas developed in Latin America in the early 20 th century, land-owning elites became the owners of export-based industries or other new enterprises. The same economic, social and political structures were maintained. Rural migrants and new immigrants located in urban areas as laborers, not as urban land owners or shareholders in new companies. Rather, they often came as squatters. They had a different outlook than their North American counterparts. The societies were far more stratified with changes in wealth and political power obtainable not from individual enterprise and access to property ownership, but through revolt and support of populist dictators, followed by military coups. There just is no history like this in North America.
What countries were colonized in the Western Hemisphere?
The colonization of western hemisphere frontiers during the 16 th and 19 th centuries by England, Holland, France, Spain, and Portugal was molded by very different views of land and minerals distribution and ownership. In the Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonies, ...
Why was land a liquid source of wealth?
Property rights in land became a liquid source of wealth, to be bought and sold and used to obtain credit. Because land was the most basic resource, its widespread ownership became the catalyst for colonial economic and political development.
How many immigrants came to Latin America in the first 100 years?
Some 243,000 immigrants may have arrived in Latin America in the first 100 years of colonization along with perhaps 7 million more between 1820 and 1920, as compared to 34 million to the United States.
How long can a foreigner lease land?
As foreigners are prohibited from permanent ownership of land. Foreigners can only lease land for a period of up to 30 year.
Who owns Israel's land?
The rest, i.e. 93%, is owned by the State and is known as “Israeli Land”. Israel’s Basic Law on real estate states that Israel’s Land is jointly owned by the State (69%), the Development Authority (12%), and the Jewish National Fund (12%).
What did Europeans do when they first came to America?
When Europeans first came to North America, they sometimes disregarded traditional land tenure and simply seized land, or they accommodated traditional land tenure by recognizing it as aboriginal title. This theory formed the basis for treaties with indigenous peoples .
What is the process of granting subordinate tenancies?
Historically in the system of feudalism, the lords who received land directly from the Crown were called tenants-in-chief. They doled out portions of their land to lesser tenants in exchange for services, who in turn divided it among even lesser tenants. This process—that of granting subordinate tenancies—is known as subinfeudation. In this way, all individuals except the monarch were said to hold the land "of" someone else.
How is land tenure studied?
In archaeology, traditions of land tenure can be studied according to territoriality and through the ways in which people create and utilize landscape boundaries, both natural and constructed. Less tangible aspects of tenure are harder to qualify, and study of these relies heavily on either the anthropological record (in the case of pre-literate societies) or textual evidence (in the case of literate societies).
What is land tenure?
In common law systems, land tenure is the legal regime in which land is owned by an individual, who is said to "hold" the land. It determines who can use land, for how long and under what conditions. Tenure may be based both on official laws and policies, and on informal customs.
Can foreigners own land in the Philippines?
Foreigners are prohibited owning land in the Philippines under the 1987 Constitution.
What are the implications of land ownership for society?
Who owns land and how they use it has implications for almost everything: the affordability of housing, the way we grow our food, how much space we leave aside for nature. Land is inherently scarce – as Mark Twain once said, “buy land: they’re not making it anymore” – and in England, its scarcity has made it so sought-after that land values have increased fivefold since 1995, according to the Office for National Statistics. The housing crisis hasn’t been caused by a sudden rise in the price of bricks and mortar, but rather in the value of the land on which homes are built.
What is access land?
Access land includes mountains, moors, heaths and downs that are privately owned. It also includes common land registered with the local council and some land around the England Coast Path.
Who owns England?
But it’s not just the Home Counties where land lies in the hands of a few. Just over 400 hectares (1,000 acres) of central London’s super-prime real estate belongs to the Crown, the Church, and four wealthy aristocratic estates. Over 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of the English uplands are tied up in huge grouse-moor estates owned by around 150 people. The Duke of Northumberland, whose family lineage stretches back to Domesday, owns 40,468 hectares (100,000 acres) – a tenth of his home county.
Who owns what?
The Crown Estate owns London’s Regent Street, including the freehold for Apple’s flagship UK store, from which the Crown collects more rent than from all its agricultural land.
How are rural landowners rewarded?
Rural landowners, meanwhile, are rewarded by the taxpayer for simply owning land through our system of farm subsidies. The Common Agricultural Policy has paid landowners according to the area of land they farm, rather than the public goods they deliver, thereby propping up a system of intensive agriculture that has decimated our wildlife and natural habitats. Land ownership has shaped the public’s access to the countryside for centuries, and though recent decades have seen more of it opened up to ramblers and cyclists, the law of trespass still prevails over vast swathes of England, so that walkers are still greeted by a profusion of ‘Keep Out: Private Property’ signs.
What is the Countryside and Rights of Way Act?
Countryside and Rights of Way Act creates a partial Right to Roam over around 10% of England and Wales, mostly in uplands and around coasts.
How many acres does the Duke of Northumberland own?
The Duke of Northumberland, whose family lineage stretches back to Domesday, owns 40,468 hectares (100,000 acres) – a tenth of his home county. A handy chart showing the division of land ownership in England. Farmers are represented in most sectors – either as direct landowners (gentry) or tenants of.
When did hunter-gatherer societies change?
Our ancestors abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle gradually over the period spanning 30,000 B.C.E and 15,000 B.C.E. This change was far from global, and hunter-gatherer societies still survive in some areas of the world today. But it did mark a transition toward an agrarian society—a transition that also heralded the advent of homeownership. In this article, we will look at the original investment, the birth of homeownership, and real estate .
Why did the amorous farmers not name everyone in their tribe anymore?
The amorous farmers, however, soon found that they could not name everyone in their tribe anymore. In return for the sacrifice of familiarity, people living in these small societies gained the safety of numbers. A well-fed army easily repelled any desperate raiders.
Why did mortgages exist?
The invention of mortgages belongs to no particular country. Mortgages existed for a long time as an exclusive loan given only to the nobility. After the industrial revolution, however, the wealth of the world increased to the point where banks opened themselves to "higher-risk" mortgage loans—those made to common people. This allowed individuals to own their own homes and, if they so desired, to become landlords themselves.
How did aristocracies get displaced?
Many aristocracies were eventually displaced—usually via displacement of an aristocrat's head from the body —by putative meritocracies: systems in which the truly best and brightest lead a nation for the good of all. What happened instead was the creation of politics.
How did the effects of industry affect the peasants?
The effects of industry were neither positive nor negative but depended on application. The use of machines for manual labor freed many peasants for different tasks and allowed a privileged few the time for education and specialization into new fields of labor opened up by the mechanization of industry.
How did royal families spread their wealth?
Royal families spread their wealth to friends, signing away titles and deeds to lands that allowed the holders to collect the revenues (rent) produced by the peasants living there. On top of this rent, all the people within a ruler's realm were generally required to pay a tax.
What are some of the things that ancestors moved with?
Magic Mortgages. The Bottom Line. For almost half of human history, our ancestors moved with the four-legged food supplies of their respective areas, leaving only trace signs of their lives: a cave painting here, some stone axes there, and the odd carved trinket in the belly of a saber-toothed tiger.
Why is land ownership important?
Much of the uncertainty relating to land ownership and tenure today arises from the trend toward collectivizing the land. To support human liberty and to further the development of a vital , dynamic economy among men, private ownership of the land is the primary essential.
Where was land first claimed?
There is considerable evidence that when cities were first developed, and possibly before, land was privately claimed for farming purposes in Egypt and the Middle East. Some of our earliest documents in the form of papyrus or clay tablets are deeds in land, privately conveyed by an owner to another owner.
What is the Soviet system of land ownership?
These acres were taken from the collective mir and exploited privately. In a sense, this pre-czarist and czarist system has been reestablished by the Soviet system, which contends that all land is socialist property but permits each household of a collective farm to have a "subsidiary husbandry" on a plot of land between one-fourth and three-fourths acres in size.
How does private ownership work?
For private ownership to exist, control must be total within the territory owned, and nonexistent beyond it. By this process, the dignity and the productivity of man can be upheld. Each man becomes the "lord" of his own domain, whether large or small. The early British view that a "man's home is his castle" is sustained. And only by this process can freedom of the individual endure.
What would happen if land was not utilized?
If the property were utilized to its highest advantage, the entire economy would benefit irrespective of the name of the owner. If the property were not utilized according to its highest utility, market factors would arise in time, which would make it advantageous to alter utilization or to transfer ownership.
What did the primitive tribes do to their land?
Primitive tribes forbade private exclusiveness in land. American Indians, at the time the first Europeans came to the Western Hemisphere, in the main practiced collective ownership of the land. The tribe claimed the territory.
Why were boundary boundaries maintained?
It was believed in India, Greece, and Rome that the boundaries of land were maintained by household gods, whose function was, at least in part, to preserve the sanctity of ownership. Property boundaries were not contiguous, and spaces between properties were preserved for free passage.

The Historical Roots
- Beginnings Our feelings about ownership have very deep roots. Most animal life has a sense of territory – a place to be at home and to defend. Indeed, this territoriality seems to be associated with the oldest (reptilian) part the brain (see IN CONTEXT, #6) and forms a biological basis for our sense of property. It is closely associated with our se...
Taking A Fresh Look
- But the human-human power struggle is hardly the only, or even the most important, issue in our relationship to the land. Whatever happened to the tribal concerns about caring for the land and preserving it for future generations? What about issues like justice, human empowerment and economic efficiency? How about the rights of the land itself? If we are to move forward towards …
Land Trusts
- A land trust is a non-governmental organization (frequently a non-profit corporation) that divides land rights between immediate users and their community. It is being used in a number of places around the world including India, Israel, Tanzania, and the United States. Of the many types of land trusts, we will focus here on three – conservation trusts, community trusts, and stewardship trus…
Bibliography
- Chaudhuri, Joyotpaul, Possession, Ownership And Access: A Jeffersonian View (Political Inquiry, Vol 1, No 1, Fall 1973). Denman, D.R., The Place Of Property (London: Geographical Publications Ltd, 1978). Institute For Community Economics, The Community Land Trust Handbook (Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 1982). International Independence Institute, The Community Land Trust (Cam…
by John Talbot
- IT WAS NOT so long ago in human history that the rights of all humans were not acknowledged, even in the democracies. Slavery was only abolished a few generations ago. In the same way that we have come to see human rights as being inherent, so we are now beginning to recognize land rights, and by land I mean all life that lives and takes its nourishment from it, as well as the soil a…