Trego's Mountain Ear

These days, you don’t have to go to Libby and check records for a title to find out who owns a piece of property. You can find out from home with a computer. Where do you look? Cadastral.

When you see the word ‘Cadastral’, think surveying. Cadastral is an adjective (in english, that -al ending is a clue), which means “showing or recording property boundaries, subdivision lines, buildings, and related detail”

It’s related to the noun, cadastre, which refers to a register of property. The word likely originates from the greek word for a register.

How is Montana’s Cadastral website useful? Montana Cadastral is a map tool hosted by the montana state library. You can search a name, an address, or simply just navigate to the region on that map that you are interested in.

For example, the address of the school provides the following:

From there, looking through details I can determine the size of land, read some construction details, and look appraisals. With private property, cadastral often also provides contact information for the property owner.

Snooping has never been easier than in this age of the internet.