Real Property Records and Assessments
The Schenectady County Real Property Tax Service Agency has made the real property records for the entire county available online. These records may be searched by name or street address and will give extensive information about the property and any houses upon it, along with assessments, taxes, exemptions and sales history. When searching these records, please note:
- It's better not to include "street" or "road" or other terms when searching by address.
- Some property may be composed of multiple adjacent parcels with distinct tax map IDs, some of which may not contain the street address.
- Not all tax information is available for all records. Some may include county tax bills but not school taxes, while others may have neither.
- The records may be updated at different times depending on the assessor's office which supplies them.
If you have additional questions about how to use this computer system, please contact the Real Property Tax Service Agency at 518-388-4246.
Land Records
The Schenectady County Clerk has put land records online using a system which is quite different from the real property system mentioned above. Some of the records in the real property system are only current through the last update supplied by the local assessor. The land record system allows you to search for the latest changes in the deed. When searching these records, please note:
- Although it says it's possible to search by name, this does not appear to be true. Try using the tax map ID, which you may locate using the real property records.
- Property which has not changed owners in several decades probably will not show up in this system.
Here's an example of how this works. If you want to see the most current information for 1100 Erie Boulevard, search by that address in the real property records. You'll discover the tax ID is 39.64-1-7. In the land records, choose "Parcel Number" under "Document Search Criteria" at the top of the screen. Enter 39.64 under Section, 1 under Block and 7 under Lot. You may use an asterisk as a "wild card" search term in any of the fields to broaden your search.
This will retrieve multiple entries since 1985, and you may view the original documents filed at the County Clerk's office by choosing the "View Pages" option. You will need to have either a TIFF viewer (such as AlternaTIFF) or a PDF viewer (such as Adobe Reader) installed on your computer to view these pages. Computers at the Schenectady County Public Library have these viewers.
If you have additional questions about how to use this computer system, please contact the Schenectady County Clerk's office at 518-388-4220.
Recent Sales
NYDEEDS is a commercial database of real estate sales records. This free version allows searches of recent sales by seller or street beginning in January 2003. Some information is only available to subscribers.
Historical Information
A compilation of the assessment rolls for the city of Schenectady for 1813 is available in the Schenectady Collection of the Schenectady County Public Library at Schdy R 974.744 S32as. For other information, please contact the appropriate local assessor's office.