Who Owns the Property?
A tenant is entitled to know the name and address of the landlord (the actual owner of the property) and the name and address of the management company if the landlord has hired a separate company to manage the property.
Finding out the name of the owner can be hard. Landlords can be people or they can be business entities. Businesses can use names called “assumed names,” which are not usually the name of the real landlord. You want to find out the actual person or business entity that owns the land as listed on the deed.
There are a few ways to find this information:
Check your lease. Your landlord’s address may be listed in your lease.
Ask the manager or the person you communicate with who the owner is and their address. The owner of the management company is not necessarily the owner of the property (many managers only give out this information). You’re looking for the owner of the property. The landlord has to legally give you this information within 7 days of a written request by posting the information in the office or responding to you in writing. They don’t have to give you this information if it’s already in your lease so make sure to check your lease. Tex. Prop. Code 92.201.
Contact the tax appraisal office in your area. All tax appraisal offices try to keep ownership data on all real property in their district. You might be able to search for this information online on the county tax appraisal website or to call their office. This information is not always correct, but it is easy to search and free.
The most accurate, but most complicated way to find out the name of your landlord is to check with the deed records department of the county where the property is located. Unfortunately, deed records are sorted by the legal description of the property instead of the address. So first, you might have to get the legal description using the tax appraisal records, as described above, and this will make your search easier. Rather than trying to figure everything out at deed records, ask a clerk for help. Explain you only want to know about the owner of one piece of land. Clerks of these offices will usually help.
Note: Even if you get information from the landlord, it is best to check it against other records (many landlords try to keep their true names hidden as much as possible).
