Public records, in general, are records that are made accessible to the public without restrictions (for the most part). These records usually contain personal and private information that have been disclosed to the public either because some government transactions or activities require that they be disclosed or because they were disclosed voluntarily.

Public records are usually kept by government agencies at all levels (i.e. county/local, state, and federal/national levels). And, because these documents were disclosed for public access, all public records are supposed to be free. So if you need access to a public record, all you'll have to do is visit the proper government agency, request for the particular record and wait for the agency's response to your request. If the public record is found, the agency may ask you to pay a minimal fee for documentary stamps and other technical expenses.

But, if all public records are supposed to be free, why would some online public record search sites ask us to pay for these documents? Well, different online companies have different reasons for doing so. Some ask you to pay for the documents because they actually purchased the documents from government agencies. Others do not charge you for the document but for their services, because these companies need to maintain a large and complex database just to give you easy and quick access to public records that are rather hard to search for.

But, for those who can't pay for the public records they need, don't despair, because you can access public records online for free. The easiest way to do this is to search the major Internet search engines, for "public record access free sites." There are also websites that offer links to government agencies that publishes their public records online. Aside from these, there are also websites that maintain their own database of free public records, although you can't expect their databases to be as large as those that ask for fees.