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Shocking! Public records easily available online!

By adamg on Wed, 03/01/2006 - 11:16pm

Tonight on Channel 5, Kelley Tuthill, one of those tough Investigators, ripped the lid off a truly outrageous story: Assessors across the state are putting property records online.

Tuthill cornered a nervous-looking North Andover assessor who, after being forced to acknowledge that these public records are now online, tried to weasel out of his clearly indefensible position by blaming it all on state laws that require public records be made available to the public.

Boston shocker that Tuthill probably just didn't have enough time to mention: A Web site that your tax dollars pay for lets you look up the value of any property in Boston (even mine!).

When can we expect Channel 5's report on the dangers hiding in buffet tables?

Earlier:
I'm a little disappointed in Channel 5.

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Comments

By steve on Thu, 03/02/2006 - 10:00am.

Finally, a way to learn the names of my neighbors without admitting I don't already know.

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By eeka on Thu, 03/02/2006 - 3:17pm.

Yeah, you can see the value, the owner, the past values, the tax rate, whether they've paid it, how many rooms are in their house, and whether their kitchen and bath are "modern,"

You can also go to suffolkdeeds.com and see the owner, purchase price, blueprint, mortgage, condo association provisions, yada yada yada of someone's house.

Or you can go to the City of Boston's Inspectional Services Division webpage and find any building permits or code violations or anything like that for any property. It's not as boring as it sounds -- I found the handwritten permit issued to build my house in 1893, certificates documenting fire damage to my house in 1920something, and all kinds of fun stuff. Too lazy to link right now, but the images are somewhere on my blog, which is easily searchable.

http://1smootshort.blogspot.com

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By adamg on Thu, 03/02/2006 - 3:31pm.

http://www.cityofboston.gov/isd/docroom/docsearch.htm

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