How to: Use Tax Assessment Records
Every property in Orleans Parish has an assessed value associated with it, determined by the Assessor’s Office. This includes land, homes, and commercial structures. Changes in the assessed value can provide researchers with valuable information, especially when trying to determine the date a structure was built.
What do Assessment Records Show?
Researchers can use tax assessment records to approximate a building’s construction date by comparing the assessed value of the property from one year to the next. When a property’s assessed value increases independently of other properties in the square, this signifies that a structure was built/ a major improvement to the land was made. This helps refine the date of construction estimated from a chain of title search or from Sanborn Maps. Assessments were made every year, whereas several years may have elapsed between conveyances and Sanborn publications.
Assessment records will show the property owner, lot measurements, value, improvements, and physical descriptions about the property.
Assessment Records
The City Archives holds tax assessment records dating back to the 1830s--before the Board of Assessors was established--up to the 1970s. Assessment records are available to view on microfilm.
To the far left are listed the property owners, with additional information about each property following.
Square 334 is the site of the current New Orleans Public Library;
the properties listed here existed prior to the construction of the current building.
The volumes are arranged by municipal district, broken down by assessment districts, and then by square. Individual line entries record the name of the landowner, the number and measurements of the lot, the streets bounding the property (and the street fronting it), and the assessed value for both the assessment year and the previous year. Properties sold during the previous year are indicated along with the date of sale, the buyer’s name, and, sometimes, the selling price.
Before You Begin
Researchers will need the following information about their property to gain access to the Tax Assessment Records:
- Square Number
- Municipal District
- Assessment District
Follow these steps to locate the above information:
- Go to the Orleans Parish Assessor’s Website.
- Click on Search Records
- Click on Yes
- Search by either Owner Name or Location Address
- Enter your search terms
- The record for the property will appear
- The Square and Municipal District are displayed on this page
- Click on Show Parcel Map
- The parcel map will be displayed
- Click the checkbox to show Assessment Districts
- The Assessment District will be shown on this page
- In this example, you can see that 219 Loyola Ave is located in Square 334, Municipal District 1, Assessment District 5
Description of Property
Be sure to review the description of property notes in the assessment, not just the values. These can provide a wealth of additional information, as you can see here. This image is from the 1956-1960 assessment record of square 334, the current site of the New Orleans Public Library. The current building was completed in 1958, so this record covers the years directly prior and after the building was opened. In the description, the assessor made note that the the current building is part of the City’s Civic Center, which included the newly opened City Hall building across the street. It also lists the former occupants of the land, including the old Criminal Court Building, Police Headquarters, and Parish Jail erected in 1898.
Tips for Researchers
It is important to conduct a chain of title or consult Sanborn Maps before using tax assessment records. Researchers will want an estimated date range of construction established, otherwise you will be looking through many years of assessment records which is a very tedious process.
Researchers should take care to begin the tax records search in a year when they have confirmed from other sources (such as the Sanborn maps) that the building in question was already standing. Without this confirmation, any conclusions drawn about the significance of changes in the building’s assessed value might be flawed. Begin the research with that year and search backwards, year by year, noting any changes in value that could suggest that a structure was added to the property.
Orleans Parish is divided into 7 municipal districts and 16 assessment districts. In the 3rd Municipal District, assessment district boundaries for assessment districts 9 and 10 were used until 1880. The following year, the practice apparently shifted to the use of ward boundaries (wards 7, 8 and 9) instead. Assessment District boundaries are outlined in the 1956 Code of the City.
Cities of Carrollton, Jefferson, and Lafayette
Researchers interested in early assessments of Uptown properties located in the former Cities of Carrollton, Jefferson, and Lafayette should be sure to review the separate assessment records for these areas. Assessments of properties located in these areas prior to annexation are included with the records of each city.
- City of Carrollton, annexed in 1874, becomes the 7th municipal district of New Orleans. Carrollton’s original borders align with the current 16th and 17th wards.
- Jefferson City, annexed in 1870, becomes the 6th municipal district of New Orleans. Jefferson’s original borders align with the current 12th, 13th, and 14th wards.
- City of Lafayette, annexed in 1852, becomes the 4th municipal district of New Orleans. Lafayette’s original borders align with the current 10th ward.
Access to Tax Assessment Records
Assessment records are available on microfilm in the City Archives. Inventories of Early Assessment Records and Board of Assessor’s Tax Records are available to view digitally. Researchers should schedule an appointment to view materials in the Archives.
Tax Assessment records are also available for the City of Carrollton, City of Jefferson, and City of Lafayette before annexation.
Blog post created by Brittanny Silva in 2023