When you buy or sell a house in Philadelphia, you probably know that paperwork gets filed at the Department of Records. What you might not know is that after your deed gets recorded, a team of special workers called “indexers” gets to work behind the scenes. These behind-the-scenes MVPs make sure your property information becomes searchable and useful for everyone in our city.
What is indexing?
Think of indexing like organizing a huge library. When the Department of Records receives a deed, mortgage, or other property document, we aim to record it in one day – which is pretty amazing! But recording it is only the first step.
After recording, the document goes to our indexing team. These skilled workers carefully read through each document and pull out the most important information:
- Who bought the property and who sold it
- The exact address of the property
- The special Document ID Number that identifies each document
Then they enter all this information into a computer database that anyone can search online.
Why does this matter to you?
Without indexing, finding information about Philadelphia properties would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Here’s why this work is so important:
For Home Buyers and Sellers: Before you buy a house, you need to know its history. Who owned it before? Are there any unpaid loans against it? Our indexed database lets title companies and lawyers quickly find this information to make sure your home purchase goes smoothly.
For Getting Loans: When you want a mortgage to buy a house, banks need to research the property’s history. Thanks to our indexers, they can do this research fast and accurately.
For Protecting Your Investment: If someone falsely claims they own your property, our indexed records prove who the real owner is.
How indexing helps other city departments
The indexed property data doesn’t just sit in our department – we share it with other parts of Philadelphia’s government so they can serve you better:
Office of Property Assessment and Revenue Department: They use our data to make sure property tax bills go to the right people at the right addresses.
Water Department: When you move, they need to know who should get the water bill for each property.
License and Inspections: They need to know who owns buildings when they do safety inspections or issue permits for renovations.
Planning Commission: They use our data when approving new projects and making decisions about how neighborhoods develop.
Sheriff’s Office: When they need to serve legal papers to property owners, our indexed data helps them find the right people.
The ripple effect
When our indexing team does their job well, it creates a ripple effect that helps all of Philadelphia run smoothly. Real estate deals happen faster. City services work better. People can make informed decisions about buying property. Businesses can research locations more easily.
Even if you’re not buying or selling property right now, you benefit from this work. Every time the city provides a service based on where you live – from trash pickup to school assignments to voting locations – they’re using data that started with our indexers’ careful work.
Everyday heroes
The next time you hear about Philadelphia’s Department of Records, remember that we do much more than just file paperwork. Our indexing team works every day to organize information that keeps our city running. They might not make headlines, but they’re essential to making Philadelphia a place where people can buy homes with confidence and where city government can serve everyone effectively.
These dedicated workers take thousands of documents each month and turn them into organized, searchable information that serves our entire city. They’re proof that sometimes the most important work happens behind the scenes, done by people who take pride in serving their neighbors and keeping Philadelphia moving forward.
