How to Find Out Who Built an Old Building

Consult local land records to determine the builder of an old building. Every county and city in the United States contains such an archive. Known variously as building permit, building plan, building and safety, or real estate records, these files will list original plans and specifications. They also will include names and dates. Many of these records can be found by consulting the website of the appropriate county or municipal office.

Find the old building by looking for its address or lot number in the building records. Lot numbers can be found on deeds, which are the documents that assign legal ownership to a property. They also can be found on maps that show the division of states, counties and municipalities into individual plots of land known as lots and parcels. The two names describe the same piece of land from two different perspectives. The lot is the physical piece of property, while the parcel is the piece of property viewed as a taxable unit.

Use the lot or parcel number to determine the history of the old building. Look for records of sales, known as abstracts of title or title abstracts. Each record will show the transfer of the old building from one owner to another. Look at the descriptions of the parcel as it has been evaluated for tax purposes, too. Parcel descriptions include detailed accounts of the physical appearance of a property. Buildings will be described by how much square footage they contain, number of rooms, kind of rooms, outbuildings and so forth.

Continue tracking the transfer of ownership of the old building back in time. The search stops when a property transfer shows the sale of unimproved, or vacant, land, or when the current building replaced an earlier building on the site. Note the name of the lot's owner at either of these points in time. This individual, group of individuals or corporation will be the original builder of the current building.

Take down the date of this transaction. Look through the records of building permits or plans to determine if any exist for the original version of the current structure. These will list the name of the architect along with the name of the owner and builder. Often, blueprints were filed in the land records office. The blueprint will show a detailed original plan of the old building.