Deeds of trust in Dallas-Fort Worth: how to read a recorded construction loan across four county clerks

Texas hides the sale price and Dallas publishes no readable permit feed, so for most of the metro the deed and the deed of trust are the first public record of a project, and sometimes the only one before it is standing. Four county clerks publish them daily. Here is how a Texas loan records, what the index carries, how to tie one to a site, and how each reader uses it.

How Texas records a loan

Texas does not use a mortgage. A lender secures a loan with a deed of trust: the borrower conveys the property to a trustee, who holds it for the lender and reconveys it when the debt is paid, or sells it at the courthouse steps if it is not. The deed of trust is recorded with the county clerk in the county where the land sits, and the clerk's official public records index carries the grantor (the borrower), the grantee (the lender and the trustee), the recording date, the instrument number and the legal description. See the glossary on deeds of trust.

What the index does not carry is the amount. Texas does not disclose sale prices on deeds, and the clerks' indexes do not state the principal on a deed of trust. Groundbreak shows a Dallas-Fort Worth loan as lender, borrower, date and parcel. A vendor quoting a DFW loan amount read it in a press release or paid for the document image and typed it.

The follow-on instruments matter too. A release of lien means the loan was paid, usually at a sale or a refinance. A modification extends or re-sizes it. A substitute trustee's deed means the lender foreclosed. All three record in the same index.

The four clerks

Groundbreak reads four daily indexes and matches each instrument to a parcel.

• Dallas County Clerk. Dallas, Irving, Garland, Richardson (part), Mesquite, Grand Prairie (part).
• Tarrant County Clerk. Fort Worth, Arlington, Grand Prairie (part), Southlake, Grapevine, Mansfield.
• Collin County Clerk. Plano, Frisco (part), McKinney, Allen.
• Denton County Clerk. Denton, Frisco (part), Lewisville, Flower Mound, The Colony.

In the last 90 days the four together carried about 8,500 filings across deeds, deeds of trust and the rest, with the parties on every one. Owner of record comes from the Dallas Central Appraisal District and the Tarrant Appraisal District rolls, 1.5 million parcels, each with the owner and the deed instrument that put them there.

Tying a loan to a site

The index gives you a legal description and the parties, not an address. Matching goes through the appraisal roll:

1. Take the grantor on the deed of trust (the borrower). Usually an LLC.
2. Find the parcel on DCAD or TAD where that entity is the owner of record, or where a deed to that entity recorded the same day.
3. The parcel gives you the address, the land size, the current improvement value and, in Fort Worth, any permit.

A deed and a deed of trust recording the same day to the same entity is a purchase with acquisition financing. A deed of trust on a parcel the entity has owned for a year is a construction loan, or a refinance; the zoning case or the permit on the parcel tells you which.

Reading it by role

Lenders. Every deed of trust on development land, by lender, by submarket, by week, is the competitive map. Groundbreak's most active lenders in Dallas-Fort Worth counts the four clerks' instruments over 90 days by lender name.

Insurers, sureties, title. A deed of trust with no permit is a project about to pull one. The lender is named; the builder's risk and the bonds are being placed.

Subs, suppliers, GCs. The loan is early for the trades, but in Dallas it may be the only record you get before the job is under way, because the city publishes no permit feed with a contractor. A deed of trust plus a Dallas City Plan Commission case on the same parcel is a funded, entitled project with no GC on any public record.

Developers and brokers. A competitor's deed of trust is their capital partner and their start date, in public.

Fort Worth versus Dallas

The two halves of the metro publish differently, and it changes what the loan is worth.

Fort Worth publishes a daily permit feed with the owner and the job value, and its permit portal carries the contractor and, on about one permit in ten, a phone. A Fort Worth project shows the deed, the deed of trust, the zoning case, the permit with its value and the contractor. See the glossary on building permits.

Dallas publishes no permit feed that carries a value or a contractor. A Dallas project reaches Groundbreak through its City Plan Commission zoning case, its deed and deed of trust, and the DCAD roll. The loan is the start signal, because the permit is not readable. Plano's Planning and Zoning Commission and the Fort Worth council agendas are read the same way. See zoning cases.

Neither county, and no county in Texas, records a notice of commencement. The coverage page lists each DFW source, what it carries and what is off.

Who this is for, and who it is not

If you need the loan amount, this record will not give it to you. Texas does not index the principal, and no feed Groundbreak reads carries it; a vendor quoting DFW loan amounts has paid for the images or read a press release. If your work is residential lending or home sales, the clerk indexes are mostly home mortgages and a consumer product serves you better.

If you follow a few sites, each clerk's public search is free. The instruments become worth reading as a feed when you want to know, within a day, who bought and who lent on development land across Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton. For that reader, the Dallas-Fort Worth development database matches every deed and deed of trust to the parcel, the zoning case and the Fort Worth permit on one project, with the borrower, lender and contractor on the Pro plan. The most active lenders and most active developers tables are free.