Commercial Property Entity Resolution Methodology
How Acren connects recorded property owners to company-registration candidates, preserves ambiguity, and distinguishes source evidence from inferred relationships.
Documentation updated . This is not a dataset refresh date.
Recorded owner, registration and control are different claims
Acren preserves the owner name from a property source separately from the decision to link that name to a company registration. A recorded owner is not proof of the beneficial owner. A name match alone does not establish ownership, a parent company, an affiliate, an operator or a person who controls the entity.
The recorded-owner relationship is source_backed when the source supplies an owner name, or not_available when it does not. Here, source-backed describes the available record, not a multi-source verification or title opinion. A missing registration match does not erase that recorded owner.
How registration candidates are produced
- Retain the source owner name and parcel context. Owner identities group observations using the property's state, normalized owner name and owner-address key.
- Generate deterministic name variants for punctuation, company suffixes and selected abbreviations. Candidate lookup uses registration name keys; longer same-state prefixes can produce additional candidates for review.
- Compare available address, registration jurisdiction, registration status and formation-date evidence. These inputs describe a candidate; they are not a universal numeric approval threshold.
- Resolve under the recorded resolver rules. The full-corpus resolver can confirm a unique active address-correlated candidate or a sole active exact-name candidate in the property state. Other candidate sets remain in review. A confirmed decision is not necessarily the result of human review.
Candidate and review contracts retain reason_codes, candidate_count and, in the review queue, hard_conflicts. Related filing-name searches also distinguish multiple exact registrations and cross-state candidates. A shared agent, address or similar LLC name is not a license to silently merge companies.
Registration-resolution statuses
| Status | Implemented meaning | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
not_evaluated | No completed registration-resolution decision is available. | Do not read an unevaluated record as a failed match or a verified registration. |
confirmed | The registration match met the resolver's deterministic evidence rules. | This status does not certify human review, current title, or beneficial ownership. |
review | A candidate remains unresolved or the available evidence is ambiguous. | Inspect candidate_count and candidate evidence. A review candidate is not a confirmed portfolio link. |
not_found | The evaluated source records produced no qualifying registration candidate. | This does not mean the recorded owner is missing, or that the company does not exist elsewhere. |
not_eligible | The recorded-owner type is excluded from automatic company-registration matching. | People, trusts, estates, government bodies and financial intermediaries are not treated as ordinary business-registration matches. |
Confidence is separate from the decision
The owner interfaces carry confidence or confidence_score alongside status and reasons. A score is not a calibrated probability of correct ownership. There is no single published numeric band that governs every relationship, source or ranking decision.
The property trust labels distinguish a confident match from a likely match requiring confirmation, no matching registration, and matching that is not applicable. Read the returned decision and evidence together; a large score on a review candidate is not confirmation. Record the available resolver_version, algorithm_version or response model_version with the decision rather than assuming this documentation names the version of every record.
Examples of implemented decision reason codes
| Reason code | Evidence described | Interpretation boundary |
|---|---|---|
EXACT_CANONICAL_NAME | A normalized owner name supports the resolver decision. | Normalization is not independent proof that two owners are the same legal entity. |
EXACT_OWNER_ADDRESS | An owner address correlates with a registration address. | A shared mailing address does not establish common control. |
SAME_PROPERTY_STATE | The registration jurisdiction matches the property's state. | Jurisdiction is context, not proof of ownership. |
ACTIVE_REGISTRATION | The registration source reports an active status. | Active registration is not a current title or beneficial-owner check. |
EXACT_REGISTRATION_CANDIDATES_REQUIRE_REVIEW | Registration candidates did not resolve to an automatic confirmation. | Retain the ambiguity instead of selecting a company from its name alone. |
NO_EXACT_REGISTRATION_FOUND | No qualifying exact registration candidate was found. | Preserve the recorded parcel owner independently of registry coverage. |
OWNER_TYPE_NOT_REGISTRY_ELIGIBLE | This owner type is outside the automatic matching rules. | Do not interpret exclusion as evidence that ownership is invalid. |
Relationships across properties
Recorded-owner searches can return exact_owner_record_name or normalized_token_alias matches with an owner_record_only relationship. These are research candidates, not a verified corporate portfolio. Registration-linked portfolios distinguish confirmed links from review links.
Official relationship evidence is a separate collection with the source's relationship type, source identifier and date when available. A historical filing may describe a parent or another role; it does not, by itself, establish a current parent, operator or beneficial owner. Series names, trusts, foreign registrations and common-name collisions require the underlying records to resolve the specific claim.
Identifiers and provenance fields
| Fields | What they identify | How to interpret them |
|---|---|---|
property_id; dataset_id + source_parcel_id | A canonical property and a source-specific parcel record are separate identifiers. | Use the source key as a pair. A source record may not yet have a canonical property_id. |
county_fips + apn | County context and the assessor's parcel identifier. | An apn is not a nationwide unique identifier. Preserve its jurisdiction and original formatting. |
owner_identity_cluster_id; source_owner_identity_id | Owner-observation groupings used by different resolution paths. | These IDs are not interchangeable with a legal registration or an individual beneficial owner. |
registration_id; source_registration_id; acren_entity_id | Canonical or source-specific entity identifiers returned by the relevant interface. | Keep the identifier's field and namespace. Do not substitute a display name for an entity ID. |
registration_state + entity_number | The registration number paired with its jurisdiction. | Use the registration state and entity number to check the official registry; availability varies. |
source_entity_id; source_url | The supporting official relationship record and its link, when supplied. | A link may open a registry search rather than a specific document. Missing links are evidence gaps, not proof that a document was checked. |
Source dates are not all the same date
source_observed_at describes a recorded observation. In the property-owner relationship response, it is populated from the parcel source's ingested_at: an ingestion observation, not a filing date or the date title changed. filing_date and effective_date describe the source event when provided. generated_at describes response generation, not a fresh source check.
Preserve missing dates as unavailable. Do not substitute today's date, a page update date or a registration formation date for an unknown source date. Registration coverage, available fields and refresh evidence vary by jurisdiction.
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