I've never looked up real estate records, so I'm not sure exactly how it works. I saw a movie once that I think was set in Manhattan, and one of the characters was informed by her lawyer that she'd have to buy the records; she couldn't just go downtown and consult them. 

I rather liked the archaic aspect of such a system, so that's what I used for this episode: JD had to buy a copy of the published real estate records for the city of Allentown.

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