Look Up Property Records in Ocean County, NJ
Here's what to expect at the County Clerk — fees, what to bring, and where to go.
New Jersey records land instruments at county level, and the shape is the same everywhere: a first-page charge plus $10.00 for each page after it. The first page is not the same amount in every county — Camden, Gloucester and Cape May publish $30.00, while Salem publishes $40.00 and says that includes an abstracting fee. A certified or true copy is charged separately: Gloucester $2, Monmouth $2, Camden $4, Salem $10.00 for a certification letter plus $1.00 a page.
The County Clerk on this page records deeds — that is the ordinary New Jersey arrangement, and it holds in 19 of the 21 counties. Only Essex and Hudson keep a separate Register of Deeds and Mortgages.
On what authority: these figures are taken from New Jersey county clerks' own published fee schedules. New Jersey does have a recording-fee statute, N.J.S.A. 22A:4-4.1, and we have not read it — so it is not cited here and nothing above rests on it. (This page used to tell you the New Jersey Statutes have no citable per-section address. They do; that was our error, corrected 2026-09-26.) Because the first-page charge differs between counties, confirm the current amount with this office before you file.
What to bring
- The document itself, signed and acknowledged before a notary. An unacknowledged deed is not recordable.
- A completed Document Summary Sheet or county cover sheet. Several New Jersey counties reject filings without one — Salem says improper summary sheets are rejected outright.
- The recording fee, counted by page: $30.00 or $40.00 for the first page depending on the county, then $10.00 for each additional page.
- For a search rather than a filing: the names of the buyer and seller and roughly when the transfer happened. New Jersey land records are indexed by grantor and grantee name, not by street address.
Deeds are recorded at the County Clerk — EXCEPT Essex and Hudson counties, which have a separate Register of Deeds and Mortgages.
This page shows the best information we have for Ocean County. Fees and hours may vary — call ahead to confirm before visiting.