What's new

Changes to LandCheck, newest first, written for the people who use it. LandCheck is published by LandCheck LLC; write to help@landcheck.io with anything that is wrong or missing.

November 2026

Fixes from a full review

Fixed: Flood exposure and Buildable land read low on small and mid-size lots, because FEMA's map labels counted as neither zone. They are measured without the labels now.
Fixed on phones: scrolling the sheet, tapping the map and closing the panel could leave the sheet's handle and Search out of reach until a reload.
The wildfire, slope and power line legends no longer cover the soil legend's Colour by switch, and they scroll when they do not fit.
A server that hangs or fails no longer leaves a row spinning. Flood, the flood-map panel, elevation, soil, wildfire, wetlands and slope say so in plain words, each with its own Retry.
The Who to call card lost its dead and hijacked county links and its chambers of commerce, and calls only a .gov address official.
Parcel number search: numbers laid out in groups no longer read as coordinates overseas, short property numbers work with the county named, a state typed in full also asks its county sources, and a county with no such number says so.
Road, rail and easement strips no longer read as parcels in several new counties, and a lot no longer lists twice where a state layer and the county's own source both carry it.
Fixed: Williamson County, Texas, could show a lot's square feet as acres, and about 40,000 Texas lots showed no property ID.

Guides for farm buyers, tax-deed investors and home builders

New guide: Buying farmland covers soil productivity ratings, tillable acres, FSA records, CRP contracts, tile and drainage districts, Swampbuster, water rights and the lease.
New guide: Buying tax-deed and tax-delinquent land covers back taxes, redemption periods, quiet title, access, covenants, the seller's last sale and listings that already sold.
How to check a piece of land now covers slope and the house site, wildfire, power, internet and water, and which county office answers what.
How to read a flood map now says when flood insurance is required, how FEMA prices it now and what an elevation certificate does. Will it perc? now gives what a test and a septic system can cost, why the soil map and the test can disagree, and what to do if land fails.
The soil map guide explains both ways the map can colour soil and why wet soil is not poor farm soil. The wetlands guide adds the federal farm program rule, Swampbuster. The guides now list their sources.

Parcel lines in more rural counties

Parcel lines now reach many more rural and mid-size counties in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico and Texas, read live from the public service that publishes each one. Owner, value and last sale show where the county publishes them.
South Carolina is now covered statewide from the state's parcel layer. Charleston, Greenville, Horry, Richland, Spartanburg, Sumter and York counties are read from their own servers instead, so no lot is drawn twice.
The new counties have their own county pages, answer Is my county covered? and can be searched by parcel number. A county we could not add is marked "Not covered yet", with the reason in plain words.
Fixed: placeholder dates in some county systems, such as January 1, 1900, no longer show as a sale.
Franklin County, Virginia is covered again: the county moved its parcel service to a new address, and LandCheck now reads from it. Delaware County, Pennsylvania now reads from the state's parcel layer, because the county's own layer started asking for a sign-in. Blount County, Alabama is marked "Not covered yet" too, because its parcel server has stopped answering.

Wildfire, wetlands, slope and who to call

New Wildfire hazard row and map layer from the USDA Forest Service: the class at the pin and what it means. It ranks the spot against the rest of the country and is not the odds of a fire.
New Wetlands and Slope rows read at the pin: the mapped wetland type in plain words beside the type the US Fish & Wildlife Service gives it, and the slope right around the pin as a percentage, from USGS elevation. A new Slope layer shades ground under 15%, from 15 to 25%, and over 25%.
The flood row now gives FEMA's own wording for the zone beside our plain line, says what the zone usually means for flood insurance, names the FEMA map panel and its date, and links FEMA's official copy. For a selected parcel it lists the zones the outline touches. All of shaded zone X now reads amber, including the 1% and levee areas.
Zone D behind a levee FEMA has not accredited no longer reads as land that was never studied: the row says flooding is possible but its odds are not measured, gives FEMA's own sentence for it, and says a lender can still ask for flood insurance.
Road access asks the US Census road map first, so most lots answer in moments, and OpenStreetMap when no public road shows close by or to confirm a local road. The row says what it is checking and offers Retry when the servers do not answer. A local road the map does not mark as public reads "a mapped road", with a note to ask the county.
New Who to call card: the county's website, the state's septic program page, the record links the panel found and the FCC broadband map for the spot.
New Power lines layer: high-voltage transmission lines, with voltage and owner on a click. Local distribution lines are not on it.

A parcel number with several matches

When a parcel number finds several matches, the one you open now waits for you to press Check hazards before it looks up the flood zone, wetlands, wildfire and slope, so you can make sure it is the right parcel first. The panel and the PDF say "Not checked yet" until then, and a flood, wetlands, wildfire or slope map layer you have on stays hidden, with a note beside its switch.

Road access that sees the whole lot

A road that runs through a lot or ends on it now counts as touching it. Large lots could read "Near" or "No public road found" when a road crossed them, and the note now says the road runs through. A road on the map is still not proof of legal access, so confirm the right-of-way on the plat.
A parcel made of separate pieces has each piece checked, and the best answer shown. A parcel with more than 8 pieces has its 8 largest checked, and the note says so.
A road inside a hole in a lot, such as a piece carved out of the parcel, counts as outside the lot.

October 2026

Soil you can read, for a house or a farm

The soil map colours by septic rating or by farmland class, chosen with a switch in its legend. "Prime farmland if drained" has its own colour, so good tiled cropland no longer looks like poor ground.
A "Very limited" septic rating shows in amber with what it means in plain words: it is common on rural and mountain soils, it is often permitted with an engineered or alternative system or a better spot on the lot, and only the county's test decides. Each limiting feature and soil term has a short explanation.
The other soils mixed into each map unit are listed under the main one, in the panel and in the PDF.
New Land cover layer from the national land cover database: cropland, pasture, forest, wetland and developed ground, and the class under the pin.
Fixed: the soil map could switch itself off after a short network drop.

Search that reads land the way it is described

Road crossings, such as "1100N & 2100E, Casey, IL", in the spellings county roads are known by.
Legal descriptions, such as "SW1/4 NW1/4 Sec 12 T69N R22W, Wayne County, IA": LandCheck finds the section, quarter or township on the federal survey grid and outlines it.
Links from farm and land broker listings land on the address, town, county or parcel number written in the link itself. LandCheck never opens the listing page.
Every search pin says how precise it is. Answers outside the place you typed are listed apart, under Elsewhere, and an estimated pin needs a second Enter or a tap.
A parcel number typed without its county is tried in the counties whose parcel numbers have that layout.
Pro batch lookup takes parcel numbers with their county or state, or a CSV with county, state and parcel number columns, and its CSV adds the last sale and the zoning where it is mapped. The flood zone stays on coordinate rows only.

A clearer first screen and honest coverage

We checked real land listings in 13 states with LandCheck and fixed what got in the way.

The header says in one plain line what LandCheck does. The "v0.1" label is gone.
Is my county covered? answers before you search: parcel lines statewide, from the county's own server, maybe (a state layer that skips some counties), or not covered yet, and what works everywhere either way. Type a county and state, or check the spot the map is centred on. After every search, a short line says whether parcel lines are where you landed.
Coverage counts come straight from the source list and no longer overstate it. Four state layers that skip counties (Colorado, Mississippi, Alaska and Pennsylvania) are no longer called statewide. Every county or state that is not covered yet says why in plain words first, with the technical note one click away, and is marked "Not covered yet" instead of "Coming soon". Pennsylvania no longer shows as both covered and not covered.
County pages promise owner names only where the county publishes them, say which part of the state a state layer covers, and say that each source is read live every time you click and tested monthly.
Layers have plain names, such as Flood zones, Wetlands and Public & protected land, with the publishing agency in small print. The Parcels row says when to zoom in closer instead of showing zoom numbers.
The pricing page is consistent about owner data: owner of record and last recorded sale from a licensed national dataset are coming to Pro, and owner-mailing lists are never offered. The monthly plan also works for a single lot: one month, cancel any time.
Fixed: a message could cover the drawing bar while you outlined a parcel; the tour's highlight could trail behind or light up the wrong area; on a phone, Help, Pro and the other dialogs could open below the screen; in the dark theme, messages, legends and the drawing bar had no background.
The About page now says who publishes LandCheck, where every dataset comes from, how it is paid for and what it is not.

The panel shows only the lot you are looking at

After a new search or click, the panel, the PDF report and the fact sheet no longer keep the previous parcel's owner, acreage or sale. Where a spot has no parcel lines yet, the panel says so.
Search pins that mark the spot itself (typed coordinates, the coordinates in a listing link, an address's own point) open the lot under the pin by themselves. Estimated addresses, streets, towns and ZIP codes offer it in one tap.
The County row names the real county, with the parcel source on its own line.
Zoning, HOA and deed records answer only inside the county or city they cover, so a lot near a county line no longer shows its neighbour's zoning map. Pinal County, Arizona zoning is new.
The pin and the lot stay in view beside the open panel, and the Last sale row explains that one recorded price can cover several parcels sold together.

Earlier in October

Search by parcel number: type a parcel ID, with the county or state when the map is elsewhere, and LandCheck asks that county's own parcel server.
Address suggestions while you type, and coordinates in any common format.
The last sale a county publishes now shows in the panel, the PDF report and the fact sheet.
37 more Virginia counties and cities, and 24 county sources that fill the gaps in the New York, Tennessee, Minnesota and Pennsylvania state layers.
Zoning districts for more than 50 more counties and cities.
Parcel lines draw only near the view and no longer reload when you zoom inside what is already loaded.
Listing links from land marketplaces land on the county or town they name; a report-a-problem link sits in every panel; a short tour is available from Help.
New guides: how to check a piece of land, reading a soil map, HOA covenants, zoning codes, wetlands, unrestricted land and mobile homes on your own land.

LandCheck is a screening tool, not a survey, a title search or a perc test. Every dataset is read live from the agency or county that publishes it.