To find out how much is owed on a house, start with the mortgage servicer: your monthly statement or online portal shows the current principal balance, and a formal payoff statement gives the exact number needed to satisfy the loan on a specific date. But the mortgage is only part of what can be owed on a property. Unpaid taxes, contractor claims, solar equipment loans, and homeowner association dues can all attach to a home, so a full answer usually means checking county records and a few other places too.
Start With the Monthly Statement or Online Portal
The fastest place to look is the servicer itself. Every monthly statement lists the outstanding principal balance, and most servicers also run online portals and mobile apps where you can see a more current figure, download transaction histories, and find customer service contacts.
The number on the statement is not what it costs to be done with the loan. It doesn’t include interest accrued since your last payment, any escrow shortfall, or administrative fees. Treat the statement balance as a rough floor. For the real number, you need a payoff statement.
Request a Payoff Statement for the Exact Number
A payoff statement is the only document that tells you exactly what it costs to fully satisfy the loan on a specific date. It’s a different animal from a monthly statement. The payoff figure includes the principal balance, all accrued interest through a target date, a daily interest charge (the per diem) for each additional day past that date, any escrow shortage, and any processing or recording fees the servicer adds.
You can request one through your servicer’s automated phone line, their online portal, or a written request sent by mail or fax. Federal regulation requires servicers to deliver an accurate payoff statement within seven business days of receiving a written request. The only exceptions allowing extra time are loans in bankruptcy or foreclosure, reverse mortgages, shared appreciation mortgages, and natural disasters.1eCFR. 12 CFR 1026.36 – Prohibited Acts or Practices and Certain Requirements for Credit Secured by a Dwelling
Every payoff statement carries a “good through” date. After that date, the calculation expires and you’d need to request a new one. This matters when closing dates on a sale or refinance can shift. If the payoff figure looks noticeably higher than your last monthly statement, the difference is usually accrued interest and escrow adjustments, not a mistake.
How Escrow Changes the Number
Most mortgages include an escrow account where the servicer collects money each month for property taxes and homeowner’s insurance. If the escrow account is short, the shortage gets added to your payoff amount. If it holds a surplus, you get a refund. Federal rules require the servicer to return any remaining escrow balance within 20 business days after you pay off the loan in full.2Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR 1024.34 – Timely Escrow Payments and Treatment of Escrow Account Balances
So don’t panic if your payoff statement doesn’t credit the escrow surplus. The refund comes separately after the loan closes out. An escrow deficit, on the other hand, will show up baked into the payoff figure.
Cross-Check With Your Credit Report
Credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion show your mortgage balance as of the last time your servicer reported it. This is useful when you’ve lost access to your servicer’s portal or want to confirm the servicer’s records match your own. Free weekly online credit reports from all three bureaus are available through AnnualCreditReport.com.3AnnualCreditReport.com. AnnualCreditReport.com Home Page
The tradeoff is timing. Servicers report on a monthly cycle, so the balance you see could be up to 30 days old. Credit reports also won’t show escrow details, per diem interest, or fees. Use this as a sanity check, not a precise accounting. If the balance looks wrong, you have the right to dispute inaccurate information, and the bureau must investigate within 30 days.4Federal Trade Commission. Fair Credit Reporting Act
Find the Servicer When You’ve Lost Track
Mortgage loans get bought and sold constantly, and the servicer today may not be the company you closed with. The quickest way to find the current one is the MERS ServicerID tool. MERS tracks the current servicer and note holder for millions of registered loans. You can search by property address, by borrower name and Social Security number, or by the Mortgage Identification Number printed on your original deed of trust.5MERSINC. Homeowners ServicerID The tool is free, and you can also call 888-679-6377 for the same information by phone.
If the loan isn’t in the MERS system, your credit report will usually name the servicer. County land records also show the most recently recorded assignment of the deed of trust, which names the current lender or its nominee.
Getting Information on Someone Else’s Mortgage
If you’re not the borrower, servicers won’t hand over balance information just because you ask. Federal financial privacy law prohibits lenders from sharing a customer’s nonpublic personal information with unrelated third parties without consent. To get access, you’ll generally need one of the following:
- Written authorization from the borrower, meaning a signed letter directing the servicer to release information to a named person, along with enough account detail for the servicer to verify the request.
- A Power of Attorney granting you authority to manage the borrower’s financial affairs. The servicer’s compliance department will review the document to confirm it covers mortgage-related transactions.
- A court order or letters testamentary if the borrower is deceased or incapacitated.
Servicers will verify identity before releasing any figures. Expect to provide your own identification along with the borrower’s name, property address, and ideally the loan account number.
If You Inherited the House
If you received the property through the borrower’s death, a divorce decree, or a transfer to a spouse or child, you have specific federal protections as a “successor in interest” under the CFPB’s mortgage servicing rules.6Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR 1024.31 – Definitions
Write to the servicer identifying yourself as a potential successor in interest, and include the borrower’s name and enough information for the servicer to locate the account. The servicer must respond with a list of documents it needs to confirm your status. Depending on how you received the property, those might include a death certificate, an affidavit of heirship, a divorce decree, or a quitclaim deed.7Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Supplement I to Part 1024 – Official Interpretations – Comment for 1024.38
Once confirmed, you’re treated like the borrower for purposes of requesting account information and receiving required disclosures.8Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR 1024.36 – Requests for Information Until confirmation, the servicer only has to tell you what documents it needs and doesn’t have to share balance details. Get the paperwork submitted quickly if you need to understand the financial picture of a property you’ve just inherited.
Search Public Records for Liens
County land records are the main source for finding liens when you don’t have access to the borrower’s private records. The county recorder’s office (sometimes called the registrar of deeds or the clerk’s office) keeps records of every mortgage, deed of trust, judgment lien, and most other claims filed against property in that county. Many counties offer free online search portals where you can look up records by the owner’s name, the property’s parcel identification number, or the document type.
What you’ll find is the original loan amount and the lender’s name, not the current balance. A mortgage recorded for $300,000 in 2015 might have $210,000 remaining today, but the county record won’t tell you that. It shows the ceiling, not the floor. Still, this is valuable when you’re trying to figure out what encumbrances exist before making an offer or settling an estate.
A professional title search fills the gaps a casual public records search might miss. Title companies work through county records, court filings, and tax databases to build a complete picture of every claim against a property. These searches typically cost $75 to $400 depending on location and complexity. When you’re buying a home, the search happens as part of closing. If you already own the property or are inheriting it, you can order one independently.
Liens That Don’t Always Show Up Where You’d Expect
A few categories of debt attached to a house catch people off guard.
Solar Panel Financing
If the homeowner financed solar panels, the lender likely filed a UCC-1 fixture filing against the property. These are recorded in the county’s real property records, but they look different from a traditional mortgage. They appear as personal property security interests rather than deeds of trust, so a quick name search in the recorder’s index might miss them. UCC filings expire after five years and must be renewed, so an older solar loan may have active continuations buried in the records. Lien priority depends on filing order, meaning a solar lien filed before a refinance could take priority over the new mortgage.
HOA and Condo Assessments
Unpaid homeowner association dues create a lien that attaches to the property automatically under most association governing documents. The catch is that the HOA doesn’t always record the lien with the county, especially where state law doesn’t require it. A standard county records search may come up clean even though the property owes thousands in back assessments. To verify, contact the association directly and request a statement of account. During a sale, the title company usually sends a payoff demand to the HOA, but on your own due diligence you’ll need to make that call yourself.
Federal Tax Liens
When someone owes back taxes to the IRS, the agency files a Notice of Federal Tax Lien in the county where the property sits. These do appear in county records, but they’re filed under the taxpayer’s name rather than the property address, so you need to know who you’re searching for. You can verify whether a federal tax lien exists by contacting the IRS Centralized Lien Operation at 800-913-6050.9Internal Revenue Service. Understanding a Federal Tax Lien State and local tax liens work similarly but are filed through different agencies depending on the jurisdiction.
If the Balance Looks Wrong
If your servicer is reporting a balance you believe is wrong, federal law gives you a formal process. Under RESPA, you can send a qualified written request to your servicer’s designated address. The letter must include your name, account number, and a clear description of what you think is wrong.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 12 USC 2605 – Servicing of Mortgage Loans and Administration of Escrow Accounts Don’t write it on your payment coupon or send it with a payment. Those don’t get the same legal protections.
The timelines work in your favor. For a dispute about a payoff balance specifically, the servicer gets only seven business days to respond with a corrected figure or an explanation of why it believes the amount is accurate. For other errors, the response deadline is 30 business days, with a possible 15-day extension if the servicer notifies you in writing before the original deadline expires. While your dispute is pending, the servicer cannot report the disputed payment as delinquent to the credit bureaus for 60 days.11eCFR. 12 CFR 1024.35 – Error Resolution Procedures Send the letter by certified mail so you have proof of when the servicer received it. That’s when the clock starts.