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Belmont County property records: every way to search them
Belmont County, Ohio property records are split across two free county offices: the Auditor (owner, value, taxes, sales) and the Recorder (deeds, mortgages, liens and leases, searchable by name from 1974 and as images back to 1801). The county GIS office has the parcel map, the Treasurer has tax payments, and Paper Trail Ohio joins all of them on one property page.
Numbers as of October 22, 2026, from the county records loaded that day (Recorder documents through October 21, 2026). Office details checked on the offices' own sites on October 22, 2026.
Which county office has which record?
| Office | What it holds | Online | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auditor | Owner of record, mailing address, values, taxes, land use, building details, sales, the delinquent list | Property search, sales report and data downloads on its site | Free online |
| Recorder | Deeds, mortgages, releases, liens, leases, easements, plats, powers of attorney | Images back to 1801 by book and page; searchable by name from 1974 | Free to search; copies $0.10 a page in the Record Room, $2.00 a page made by staff |
| Treasurer | Tax bills, payments, payment plans, tax foreclosure sales | Its site links the delinquent list and the foreclosure sale list | Free online |
| GIS office | Parcel lines and map layers | Public map data on its data site | Free online |
All four offices are in the courthouse at 101 West Main Street, St. Clairsville. Call before you drive: hours and phone numbers are below.
How do I find who owns a property?
Use the Auditor's property search. The owner on the Auditor's file is the owner the tax bill goes to. To see how the owner got the property, take the deed book and page (or the owner's name) to the Recorder's search.
How do I see the deed, mortgage or liens on a property?
The Recorder indexes by name, not by address: Belmont County does not keep a tract index, so you search the owner's name and the seller's name and read the legal description to be sure it is the same land. See the deed search guide for the steps.
How many records are there?
Recorded documents in Paper Trail's copy of the Recorder's index, by kind, with what recorded in the last 12 months:
| Kind of document | Last 12 months | In the index |
|---|---|---|
| Deeds and transfers | 3,558 | 179,347 |
| Oil, gas and leases | 2,831 | 70,545 |
| Mortgages | 1,880 | 131,522 |
| Releases | 1,731 | 98,602 |
| Other | 416 | 15,411 |
| Easements and right of way | 338 | 16,797 |
| Liens and judgments | 310 | 13,083 |
| Powers of attorney, trusts, companies | 244 | 8,913 |
| Business filings (UCC) | 115 | 25,110 |
| Plats and surveys | 8 | 2,289 |
The Auditor's file holds 84,112 parcel numbers; 62,141 are active (the rest were retired by splits and combinations). The Auditor marked 1,019 sales as real sales in the last 12 months.
What does Paper Trail add?
The county keeps owners and deeds in separate systems, so the Recorder's index never tells you which parcel a document is about. Paper Trail matches 64,813 parcels to their recorded documents, so one property page shows the owner, the value, the taxes owed, the sale history and the deeds, mortgages, liens and leases together, with book and page to pull the original. Searching is free. Before 1974 it tells you which of the county's scanned index books covers a surname and year.
Search a property Records by town
Offices, addresses and phone numbers
Phone 740-699-2130
Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Phone 740-699-2140
Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; documents are recorded until 4:00 p.m.
Phone 740-699-2145
Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Phone 740-526-9306
8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Every parcel as a spreadsheet or map file
The Auditor's parcel file joined to the map: owner, mailing address, values, taxes, land use and acres, one row per parcel.
59,127 active parcels on the county map in Belmont County today, $150.00 for all of them. Pick a town, township or ZIP code to get a smaller list.
Questions
Are Belmont County property records free?
Yes. The Auditor's property search and the Recorder's index search are free online. The Recorder charges $0.10 a page for copies you print in the Record Room and $2.00 a page for copies the staff make.
Can I search Belmont County records by address?
On the Auditor's site, yes. The Recorder indexes by name, so search the owner's or seller's name there. Paper Trail searches by address, owner or parcel number and shows the recorded documents tied to the parcel.
How far back do Belmont County deeds go online?
The Recorder has deed images online back to 1801, found by book and page. Name searching starts in 1974; for earlier deeds, the scanned handwritten index books are on the Recorder's site under Historic Indexes.
Is Paper Trail Ohio a county website?
No. It is a private site built from the county's public records. The Auditor and Recorder are the official sources; check the recorded document before relying on anything.