Peabody Property Records
Peabody property records are filed at the Essex South Registry of Deeds in Salem. You can search Peabody deeds, mortgages, and liens online for free through MassLandRecords.com. The city also has its own assessor's office with online property data for looking up tax rates, assessed values, and building details. Peabody has about 54,000 residents and is in the southern part of Essex County, bordered by Salem, Lynn, and Danvers.
Peabody Overview
Essex South Registry for Peabody
All Peabody property records go to the Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds in Salem. This registry is part of Essex County, which has two registry districts: Southern Essex in Salem and Northern Essex in Lawrence. Peabody falls under the southern district. Every deed, mortgage, lien, homestead declaration, and trust for Peabody properties gets recorded at the Salem office.
You can search Peabody records through MassLandRecords.com. Select Essex South from the registry list. The site is free and does not require a login. Use the name search to find documents by buyer or seller. The advanced search lets you filter results by town, document type, and date range. If you want just Peabody results, pick Peabody from the town dropdown.
Recording fees follow the same state schedule used at every registry in Massachusetts. A deed costs $155. Mortgages are $205. Discharges cost $105. The deed excise is $4.56 per $1,000 of the sale price. Certified copies are $1.00 per page.
Peabody Assessor Property Data
The Peabody Assessor's Office tracks assessed values for all property in the city. Call 978-538-5716 to reach the office. They handle valuations, abatement requests, and exemption applications. Property tax bills in Peabody are sent quarterly.
The Peabody Assessor's website gives you access to the online property database, tax rate details, and forms for abatements and exemptions.
From the site you can look up property cards, assessed values, and ownership info for any parcel in the city.
The FY 2026 residential tax rate in Peabody is $9.47 per $1,000 of assessed value. The commercial rate is $18.85. On a home assessed at $450,000, the annual tax comes to about $4,262. The abatement deadline is February 1 each year. If you think your assessment is too high, file an abatement application with evidence such as comparable sales or property condition problems.
How to Find Peabody Land Records
For a deed search, start at MassLandRecords.com and pick Essex South. Type the owner's last name in the name search. You can filter for Peabody under the town dropdown. The system shows all matching documents with indexed info like document number, book and page, recording date, and party names. Click any result to view the full scanned document.
The address search is available too. Enter the street address and pick Peabody as the town. This can work well for recent recordings. But address searches are not the official legal index in Massachusetts. The name search is more reliable and complete, especially for older records. If you have a book and page number from a prior deed, the book search gets you there fastest.
Note: All document images on MassLandRecords are free to view and print without an account.
Common documents for Peabody properties include deeds, mortgages, discharges, homestead declarations, liens, UCC filings, and plans. When you close on a Peabody home, the title company or attorney records the deed and mortgage at the Essex South Registry. Each filing gets assigned a book and page number. That number stays with the document and is used to trace the ownership chain through prior deeds. If you want to see who owned a Peabody property before the current owner, follow the book and page references back through each deed in the chain.
Peabody Property Record Laws
M.G.L. Chapter 183 governs deed transfers in Peabody. Recording your deed at the Essex South Registry protects your ownership against later claims. The homestead law under M.G.L. Chapter 188 lets you protect your primary home from most creditors up to $1,000,000 for a $35 filing fee.
All documents at the registry are public records under M.G.L. Chapter 66. Registered land in Peabody follows M.G.L. Chapter 185, which uses Certificates of Title instead of traditional deed chains. The Consumer Notification Service is available to alert you when new documents are recorded against your property.
Nearby Cities
These cities are near Peabody and have their own property records pages.
Essex County Property Records
Peabody is in Essex County. The county has two registry districts: Southern Essex in Salem and Northern Essex in Lawrence. Peabody falls in the southern district. Visit the county page for full details.