Greene County Deed Records

Greene County deed records are filed and kept by the Greene County Clerk and Recorder at 519 N. Main St. in Carrollton, Illinois, where all recorded property instruments are indexed by grantor and grantee name and open to the public during regular office hours. Whether you need to confirm ownership, search a chain of title, or record a new deed, the Carrollton office is where the process begins and ends in Greene County.

Greene County Clerk and Recorder Office

The Greene County Clerk and Recorder is located at 519 N. Main St. in Carrollton. The phone number is (217) 942-5443. Office hours run Monday through Friday. The combined Clerk and Recorder function means the same office handles both county administrative records and the official deed archive for all property recorded in Greene County.

When a deed is filed at the Carrollton office, staff stamp it with the recording date, assign a document number, and enter both the grantor's and grantee's names into the public index. That index is searchable by any member of the public at no cost during business hours. It is the primary tool for tracing who has owned any specific parcel in Greene County over time.

The Greene County office records a wide range of land instruments. Warranty deeds and quitclaim deeds come in most often, but the office also handles mortgages, mortgage releases, mechanic's liens, judgment liens, easements, subdivision plat maps, UCC filings tied to real property, and DD-214 military discharge records. Each instrument gets the same treatment: verified against recording requirements, stamped, indexed, and stored in the permanent archive at 519 N. Main St.

The MyDec portal from the Illinois Department of Revenue, shown below from mytax.illinois.gov, is the online system used to submit the PTAX-203 Real Estate Transfer Declaration before recording most taxable deeds in Greene County.

After completing the PTAX-203 in MyDec, the system generates a barcode confirmation page. Bring that printout along with the signed deed to the Carrollton office. The Recorder will verify the MyDec confirmation before accepting the instrument for recording in Greene County.

Recording Requirements for Greene County Deeds

Illinois deeds must meet the standards in the Conveyances Act at 765 ILCS 5. The basic requirements apply in Greene County the same as anywhere else in the state. A deed must name the grantor and the grantee. It needs a complete legal description of the property being conveyed. The grantor's signature must be notarized.

Greene County also requires the parcel identification number on the deed. The PIN connects the instrument to the correct parcel in the assessor's records. Place the PIN near the top of the document or alongside the legal description. Staff will not locate the PIN for you, so confirm it with the Greene County assessor before you bring the document to Carrollton.

The first page of every deed must have a clear 3-inch by 5-inch blank space in the upper right corner. That space is reserved for the Recorder's stamp, which captures the recording date, document number, and instrument type. Any text, seal, or watermark placed in that corner will cause the document to be returned for correction before it can be accepted at 519 N. Main St.

For most taxable property sales, the completed PTAX-203 must accompany the deed at the time of recording. Exempt transfers still require the form to be filled out with the applicable exemption noted. Review the Illinois Legal Aid recording guide, shown below from illinoislegalaid.org, for a plain-language walkthrough of what the Greene County Recorder needs at the counter.

The Illinois Legal Aid guide explains common reasons documents get rejected and how to fix them before your next trip to Carrollton. It is a useful resource if this is your first time recording a deed in Greene County or anywhere else in Illinois.

Transfer Taxes and Recording Fees

Illinois collects a real estate transfer tax under 35 ILCS 200. The state rate is $0.50 per $500 of sale price or fraction thereof. Greene County tacks on an additional $0.25 per $500 at the county level. On a $90,000 sale in Carrollton, the state portion comes to $90 and the county portion comes to $45, for a combined $135 before any other local charges. Revenue stamps reflecting the tax paid are affixed to the recorded deed.

Per-page recording fees in Illinois are governed by 55 ILCS 5/3-5018. That statute sets limits on what county recorders can charge for each page of a recorded document. Call (217) 942-5443 or visit the Carrollton office to get the current fee schedule before you submit any instruments for recording in Greene County.

Every instrument recorded in Greene County carries a flat $18 RHSP surcharge per document. The Rental Housing Support Program fee is not calculated on sale price or page count. It is a fixed amount collected at the counter each time a new instrument is presented for recording. Budget for the $18 on top of the per-page fee and any transfer tax owed.

DD-214 military discharge papers can be recorded at no charge at the Greene County Clerk and Recorder. Veterans and eligible family members who record a DD-214 can later get certified copies at reduced or no cost. Call (217) 942-5443 to confirm current policy before coming to the Carrollton office with the discharge papers.

How to Search Greene County Deed Records

The grantor and grantee name index at 519 N. Main St. is open for public walk-in searches during regular office hours. Bring the full legal name of the current or prior owner, the property address, or the parcel ID number if you have it. Staff will point you to the right index section. The actual searching is yours to do, but the process is straightforward once you understand how the grantor and grantee columns work.

Start with the grantee index to find when a property was acquired. Then move to the grantor index to trace when it was sold. Work backward through transfers one at a time. Each instrument in the index shows the document number, recording date, and the names of both parties. Use the document number to pull a copy of the full recorded deed from the archive at the Carrollton office.

Copies of recorded instruments are priced per page under the 55 ILCS 5/3-5018 fee schedule. Certified copies cost a bit more per page. For most searches at the Greene County office, knowing the approximate recording year helps narrow the index quickly. If you are unsure where to start, the staff at 519 N. Main St. can describe how the index is organized without doing the search for you.

Mail-in requests are accepted at 519 N. Main St., Carrollton, IL 62016. Send the party names, approximate recording dates, any document numbers you have, and a check for the estimated copy fee. The office will search and mail results. In-person visits move faster for anything that requires looking through multiple index entries or reviewing older document images from the Greene County archive.

Illinois uses a race-notice recording system. The first party to record who had no knowledge of a prior unrecorded transfer takes priority. Record your Greene County deed promptly after closing. Delays leave your title exposed to competing claims from any later transfer of the same parcel that gets recorded before yours in Carrollton.

eRecording in Greene County

The Illinois Electronic Recording Act at 765 ILCS 33 permits county recorders across Illinois to accept documents submitted digitally through approved vendor platforms. Title companies, lenders, and law firms can submit deed files through vendors such as Simplifile, CSC, EPN, Hopdox, or Indecomm, have them processed at the Carrollton office, and receive stamped return copies electronically without traveling to 519 N. Main St.

Call (217) 942-5443 to find out whether eRecording is currently active at the Greene County Clerk and Recorder and which vendors are approved. Individual buyers and sellers who are not enrolled with an eRecording vendor bring their signed and notarized deed along with the MyDec barcode confirmation to the counter at 519 N. Main St. in person. That over-the-counter path works for one-time transactions and does not require any account setup or technology beyond the MyDec printout.

What the Greene County Recorder Archives

The permanent deed archive at the Carrollton office holds all instruments ever recorded in Greene County. That includes warranty deeds, quitclaim deeds, trustee's deeds, sheriff's deeds from foreclosure or tax sales, land contract memoranda, mortgage documents and their releases, mechanic's liens and lien releases, judgment liens, easement agreements, road and right-of-way documents, subdivision plat maps, survey records, UCC filings attached to real property, and DD-214 military discharge records. Every one of those instruments appears in the grantor and grantee index at 519 N. Main St.

The transfer tax data from PTAX-203 forms filed with Greene County deeds flows to the county assessor's office. The assessor uses that sale price information to gauge market values for property tax purposes. Older recorded deeds carry revenue stamps showing what the property transferred for at each prior sale. For anyone doing a deep title search or market research on Greene County land, that stamp data gives a quick read on historical transaction values going back many years in the Carrollton archive.

Nearby Counties

Property near a Greene County boundary may have deed records held by a neighboring county recorder. Each of the offices below keeps its own separate land records archive.