Not the assessed value. Not the zoning code. The name. The LLC. The shell company in Delaware. The offshore trust with a P.O. Box in the Caymans.
Governments are starting to notice. Several European cities have hired known Cadmappers to build public land registries. The reaction from the real estate lobby has been predictably hostile: bills to “privatize” property records have been introduced in three U.S. states. cadmappers
Cadmappers build the ladders. In 2024, a loose coalition of Cadmappers released CadmapDB —a community-maintained index linking over 40 million property records to corporate registries. It’s clunky, incomplete, and legally fragile. It is also the most powerful anti-corruption tool most citizens have never heard of. Not the assessed value
In 2021, a collective of Cadmappers exposed that 62% of vacant lots in a major U.S. city’s poorest ward were owned by just three shell companies, all tracing back to a single foreign investor. The city had no idea. The tax assessor had them listed as “owner unknown.” The LLC