How to Read ACRIS Records

ACRIS (Automated City Register Information System) is the NYC official database of recorded real estate documents — deeds, mortgages, satisfactions, leases, and more. Understanding what you're looking at makes the difference between a 5-minute property research session and a 2-hour rabbit hole.

What ACRIS Contains

Any document that legally transfers, encumbers, or affects title to real property in New York City must be recorded with the City Register. ACRIS is that record. It covers Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Staten Island uses a separate system (Richmond County Clerk).

Common document types you'll encounter:

Document type	What it means
DEED	Transfer of ownership — the most important record. Shows seller (party 1), buyer (party 2), and sale price.
DEED, BARGAIN AND SALE	A variant of a deed commonly used in NYC for arms-length sales.
DEED, EXECUTOR	Transfer from an estate to a beneficiary or purchaser.
DEED, QUIT CLAIM	Transfers whatever ownership interest the grantor has, without warranty. Common in refinances and family transfers — may not indicate a true sale.
MORTGAGE	Recorded when a lender has a lien on the property. Shows lender name and loan amount.
SATISFACTION OF MORTGAGE	The mortgage has been paid off. Lien released.
UCC1 / UCC3	Financing statements; less common in residential, more common in commercial.
LEASE	Long-term leases (typically 3+ years) are recorded. Short-term rentals are not.

The Three ACRIS Datasets

ACRIS on NYC Open Data is split into three related tables. To get complete information, you must join all three:

Dataset	Contents	Socrata endpoint
Legals	Links document IDs to BBLs — this is how you find all documents for a specific property	`8h5j-fqxa`
Master	One row per document: type, date, amount, recording status	`bnx9-e6tj`
Parties	One row per party per document: name, address, party type (1=grantor/seller, 2=grantee/buyer)	`636b-3b5g`

The join key is document_id — a unique identifier assigned when a document is recorded. Lotlyze performs this three-way join automatically and presents the result in plain language.

Reading a Deed Record

Here's a typical ACRIS deed record and what each field tells you:

Date 2024-01-25 Recording date (not necessarily the closing date — can be days or weeks later)

Type DEED Document type (see table above)

Party 1 SMITH JOHN Grantor / seller — who transferred title

Party 2 JONES JANE Grantee / buyer — who received title; often an LLC or trust

Amount $1,250,000 Consideration paid — the declared sale price. May be $0 or $1 for non-arm's-length transfers (gifts, estate distributions, inter-company moves)

LLC Ownership

In NYC commercial and multifamily real estate, most purchases are made through LLCs. The LLC name appears as Party 2 on the deed. Tracing who controls the LLC requires checking:

New York State Division of Corporations (apps.dos.ny.gov) — lists the registered agent and filing address
Same ACRIS records for the selling LLC — you can often work backward to find when the current owner acquired the building and from whom
Who Owns What (JustFix) — helpful for tenant-side research; cross-references portfolio ownership via LLC networks

What $0 or $1 Means

Not every deed records the real consideration. A $0 or $1 amount typically indicates one of these situations:

Transfer between related parties (parent company to subsidiary, spouses, estate to heirs)
Refinance-related deed (some lenders require a deed as part of a loan restructuring)
Correction deed (fixing an error in a prior recording)
Tax-exempt transfer (foreclosure buyback, government acquisition)

For a $0 deed, look at the surrounding mortgage records — if a large new mortgage was recorded the same day, it often reflects the true acquisition price.

ACRIS vs. Rolling Sales Data

NYC Finance publishes separate Rolling Sales files that contain verified sale prices with outliers removed. ACRIS is more current and complete (every document type, not just arm's-length sales), but Rolling Sales is cleaner for comparable analysis because DOF curates it.

Search ACRIS records for any NYC property — no setup required:

Search Lotlyze