How can I confirm who owns property (private vs publicly owned)

[Scott in Houston]

I'm having to go to the Alley Theater in Houston, and it's posted, but I'm 99% sure it's publicly owned property, therefore illegally posted.
How can I find a "list" or a confirmation of what is owned by the county/city/state, etc?

[Pawpaw]

Have you tried the county appraisal district website?

http://hcad.org/

[Scott in Houston]

Have you tried the county appraisal district website?

I haven't, but great idea.

And now that I read it, my first thought is "duh!"

[Tejas59]

A quick answer is to check the county appraisal district website. CAD's can sometimes be incorrect if the property changed hands recently, but are usually useful. In this case hcad.org shows the owner as "Alley Theatre". My guess would be it's a non-profit corporation that owns the theater...but that's all I have, a guess. You'd have to research the entity "Alley Theatre" to find out more...

Looks like Pawpaw and me were thinking alike and typing at the same time. Clearly he has faster fingers

[Scott in Houston]

A quick answer is to check the county appraisal district website. CAD's can sometimes be incorrect if the property changed hands recently, but are usually useful. In this case hcad.org shows the owner as "Alley Theatre". My guess would be it's a non-profit corporation that owns the theater...but that's all I have, a guess. You'd have to research the entity "Alley Theatre" to find out more...

Thank you. I was just doing that, and that's what I'm finding. It's definitely a non-profit organization, but I'm amazed that they own the building. From what I can tell, they very well may.

[HD76]

If you look at the class code for the property, it will tell you if the property is government or not. ‘XV’ is ‘other exempt(government)’. Alley Theater property is classified as XV. Probably another of those hybrid public/private ventures like Discovery Green park.

[Scott in Houston]

If you look at the class code for the property, it will tell you if the property is government or not. ‘XV’ is ‘other exempt(government)’. Alley Theater property is classified as XV. Probably another of those hybrid public/private ventures like Discovery Green park.

Ah... interesting. Thank you. Well, it seems illegally posted based on that information.
I don't expect our AG to do anything about it, but I plan to write the appropriate letters now...

[Tejas59]

I'm not an expert on property codes for tax purposes but thought XV is just a property that doesn't fit in other exempt categories. Could be church, non-profits, charities, and such?

[HD76]

I'm not an expert on property codes for tax purposes but thought XV is just a property that doesn't fit in other exempt categories. Could be church, non-profits, charities, and such?

I looked it up, and I was incorrect in my statement. You are correct, XV is exempt properties for multiple different reasons. When you look up a property in HCAD, they will list the reason for the XV designation next to it. So "Other Exempt (Goverment)" is the XV code to look for when checking for government property. There is also (Charitable), (Religious), (Cemetery), and (Historical).

[JustSomeOldGuy]

The county appraisal database is of course the last word regarding property ownership, but can be a royal pain in the anatomy to use sometimes. if they offer a map based search, I usually use that rather than searching by street name, number, etc.

A sometimes convenient shortcut, if the location is something high profile like a park, museum, event venue, etc is to simply look it up on wikipedia. The entry for it often includes the type of info you're looking for. A close second is sometimes the entity's own website, particulary if the actual operator is a 501c3 entity.

[WildRose]

A few minutes googling shows it's owned by a private NPO.

Carry at your own risk, at worst you get asked to leave if someone notices.