How Much Is That Camp in the Window?

So say your council has sold camps through the years, and you want to find out how much they sold for and who bought them.  Did you know all of that information is considered public record?  Yes, you can find out with a little bit of digging!  Here’s how.  But just a warning – it might be a little frustrating and more than a little time consuming, but as George McFly said, “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.”

Property sales are considered public records, so anyone is welcome to view them.  You can try to look up sales history on a website like Zillow.com, but they don’t keep historical data.  Your best bet is to find out what county the camp was located in and then go to that county’s Tax Assessor’s website.  Just do a Google search for the name of the county and state and include the term “tax assessor,” and it should come up within the first few results.  Most of them offer the ability to search for a Real Estate or Property Tax item by either the owner or the address.  Sometimes the Ownership History will be listed along with the previous sales prices.  I list some search tips below on how to find your council’s records.

If you can’t find the sales history, and/or you want the actual deed, go back to the Tax Assessor’s page or the home page of the county’s website and look for something called the Recorder of Deeds.  It could also be called a Registry of Deeds.  These days most counties have searchable public records for at least the past 10 to 20 years if not more, but there are a few who don’t or who only give a tiny of information and make you come in person to their offices or call to get a copy of the actual deed.  And then there are a few who make you pay to even do a search in the first place.  I have a huge problem with this, but that’s another rant for another time.

What’s a recorder of deeds?  I ripped this from the following website:  “The Recorder of Deeds is a centralized office where documents related to real estate ownership are recorded, indexed, and stored. The purpose of the Recorder of Deeds is to ensure the accuracy of property and land records and to preserve their continuity. Land and property records maintained by the Recorder of Deeds include a wide range of documents, such as deeds and their related easements, rights of way, liens, covenants, and restrictions, as well as mortgages and related documents. The Recorder of Deeds is usually a county or local government office, and it may be established as a division within the Clerk’s Office or as a separate office.”

If it’s not linked on the county’s website (usually it’s straight off of the Assessor’s page), just do a Google search for your county’s recorder of deeds.  Or registry of deeds.  Sometimes it’ll get confusing, but just keep digging and be persistent!  Each county’s search process is different, so I can’t walk you through it at this point, but I can give you some tips and advice:

1. Have your old camp’s address handy.
2. If you’re doing a search for the tax record, it’s possible you’ll need to know the year of the sale.
3. You’ll also need to have the legacy council’s name who owned the camp in addition to the current one because sometimes property records were still in the name of the legacy council at the time of sale.
4. If you do a search for the name of the titleholder, it might be quicker to search using the term “girl scout” to see if it’ll pick up anything with that in the name.
5. If not, then try every instance you can think of.  Sometimes these searches are very particular.  For example, the legacy council of this area was OFFICIALLY called Girl Scouts of the Old 96 Council.  However, under Greenville County, there are listings for GIRL SCOUTS OF THE OLD 96 COUNCIL INC and OLD NINETY SIX GIRL SCOUT COUNCIL INC.
6. If you’re looking via the address field, and the exact address doesn’t pull any results, then try searching for just the street name.  Or even part of the street name.  For example, if the camp’s address was 123 SCOUT LANE, then try searching for “scout lane” or even just “scout.”  If it’s recorded as 123 SCOUT LN, it’s possible the search “Scout Lane” will not give you any results.
7. If you’re searching in the Recorder of Deeds, look for a DEED or some kind of property record.  It will depend on what’s available, because each county makes a decision as to how much (or how little) they want to make available for viewing or downloading, and they use different systems to display the information.  Even if you can’t download the actual deed, there should be something that tells you how much something sold for.
8. Some other things to look for are the Book and Page number of the document and sometimes what’s called the Tax Map Number.  These things might help with your search.

The worst case scenario is that you’ll have to visit that county’s government offices, but you should at the very least be able to look up the sales price online.  If you want a copy of the deed, then that might be where you have to take a trip to get it.  But the majority have them  available online.

Good luck!

Addendum 6/23/20:  Did you know that according to the Blue Book, councils and GSUSA cannot sell property for less than the fair market value?  It’s true!  Look in Policies/Fundraising/Ownership of Assets/pg. 21:  “They are the property of and are administered by the Girl Scout council or Girl Scouts of the USA and shall not be sold, given, transferred, or conveyed to a third party for less than fair market value.”