Transfers of land in Newton are recorded at the Middlesex South Registry of Deeds. Information about each deed, including images of the documents filed with the registry, are available online.
It’s easiest to find a deed if you know the Book and Page number of the filing. If you have this information, then click the “Search Criteria” choice at the top of the registry website, and select “Book Search” under “Recorded Land”. The screen changes to show fields for Book and Page Number. Fill them in, and click the Search button. One or more lines of information will appear in the area on the left side of the screen. Click on a number in the Doc. # column, and more data will appear on the right side. Click the View Images button to see the actual document.
To find the Book and Page number for a parcel, look it up in the Newton Assessor’s database: https://newtonma.mapgeo.io/map.aspx. Once you find a property by searching for it or clicking on it on the map, look in the Sale History section on the left side. The information under “Legal Reference”, such as 7637/531, is the Book and Page number for the most recent sale of the property. (This example is the Newton Free Library.) But for some parcels, particularly those that have not changed hands in recent years, the Legal Reference field is blank.
If you don’t know the Book and Page number of a property, it may be possible to find it using one of the other “Search Criteria” functions listed on the main menu of the Registry of Deeds page.
