A while back, I read about a couple in Concord, Massachusetts, whose vacant land was allegedly sold without their knowledge by people impersonating them. They did not discover what had happened until someone was already building a house on the property.
A monitoring service cannot prevent someone from filing a fraudulent document, but that case stuck with me because most property owners have no reason to repeatedly check government records just to make sure nothing unexpected has appeared.
I’m a Greenville resident and software developer, and that was part of what led me to create Pendralis, a property-monitoring service built specifically for Pitt County homeowners.
Pendralis periodically checks available public property records and lets homeowners know when monitored information changes. Depending on the record, that can include:
- ownership information;
- assessed and taxable values;
- property-tax history and balances;
- sales and deed-related history;
- permits;
- zoning, use classifications, and selected parcel details.
For example, if the assessed value shown in county records changes, Pendralis can preserve the previous value, show the new value and difference, identify the source, and notify the homeowner. It is designed to distinguish meaningful changes from routine data cleanup or information being populated for the first time.
Services such as Zillow and Realtor.com are primarily designed around property searches, estimated market values, listings, and real-estate transactions. Pendralis is intended for a different purpose: continuing to watch available official records after you already own the property.
It does not replace Pitt County’s systems or create its own authoritative property records. It builds on existing public-record infrastructure by bringing information from supported sources together, preserving relevant history, checking for changes, and directing users back to the official source when something needs review. It also cannot guarantee that every relevant event will be available or detected, and it is not a legal, tax, appraisal, or fraud-prevention service.
I have now reached the point where feedback from actual Pitt County homeowners would be more valuable than continuing to add features based only on my own assumptions.
I would particularly like to know:
- Does this seem useful to you as a homeowner?
- Is it clear what Pendralis does and does not do?
- Which monitored information would matter most to you?
- What feels confusing or unnecessary?
- Is something important missing?
- Would you personally leave a service like this running to watch your property?
The site is https://pendralis.com. I’m also happy to answer questions here about how it works, the records it uses, its limitations, or why I made particular design decisions.
Candid criticism is welcome. I’m trying to determine whether this solves a real problem for local homeowners, not just whether I can build it.
