What communities are included in this database?
Parcels include unincorporated Scott County and Parkview, as well as the Cities of Bettendorf, Blue Grass, Buffalo, Davenport, Dixon, Donahue, Durant, Eldridge, LeClaire, Long Grove, Maysville, McCausland, New Liberty, Panorama Park, Princeton, Riverdale, Walcott.
What do the status code mean on the parcel listings, such as A or I?
The status of the parcel, A or I, indicates whether the parcel is active or inactive for the tax year in question. Reasons a parcel may go inactive is due to either a combination or division of the property, for instance, when a tract of land is subdivided.
Why would a parcel search yield no results, but I know the parcel exists?
The short answer is that the information you see online represents the parcels in the current tax year, not the current status of real estate within Scott County. The only exception to this is that sometimes the Scott County Assessor will post data to their version of the online records representing properties as they are entered into their appraisal system. However in these cases, the parcels will only show up in the Assessor’s tab of the Parcel Query application but not under the Auditor’s/Treasurer’s tab.
The longer answer as to what the tax parcels don’t show up is because the tax database maintained by the County Auditor's office is based on prior year values, and therefore on what existed last year, not necessarily what currently exists on the ground.
Assessments don't get finalized until April 1 of each year so there can be a long lag between when properties are platted/built (when you may start seeing occupied homes and businesses popping up) and when they actually begin to appear in the tax rolls (and in our online records). In the current assessment/tax cycle a worst case example would be if a property was platted Jan 1, 2015 (and perhaps built 2-3 months later). It would not show up online and in taxes until after Assessments were finalized 4/1/2016 and submitted to the state and local Auditor. Internally we’ve discussed the possibility of creating the parcels in GIS as they are platted and sharing those online in the Scott County GIS Map Service, but they would still not have a corresponding record in taxes.
You can get more information from the Iowa Department of Revenue on the property tax cycle here: https://tax.iowa.gov/iowa-property-tax-overview. This link describes many of the standard dates surrounding property valuation and tax reporting.
How often in the database updated?
The data is updated nightly.
List of Parcels
How do I access the GIS?