Assessor's Parcel Number (APN)

When the County Property Appraiser needs to send out 500,000 tax bills, they don't want to read a paragraph about "degrees and minutes" for every house. They need a simple ID number. Just like you have a Social Security Number that identifies you to the IRS, every piece of land in the county has a unique Parcel ID Number (PID) or APN. It exists primarily to aid in the assessment of property for tax collection. It is usually a string of numbers that acts like a code.Example: 12-34-56-78-9000.These numbers often correspond to the Book, Page, Block, and Lot of the tax maps. Important Note: While you will see the APN on real estate contracts, it is NOT a formal legal description. If you are writing a deed, you cannot just write the APN; you need the full legal description.