Buying in Franklin County, Missouri

Franklin County at a glance

Franklin County is one of 115 counties and county-equivalents in Missouri. Its county seat is Union. County government publishes its offices and parcel tools online. Official county website. Its 2024 Census Bureau population estimate is 107,256 across 923 square miles of land — about 116 people per square mile. In the FBI's 2024 reported-crime file, agencies here reported 1,461 offenses — 13.62 per 1,000 residents; the breakdown is below.

Records to check before you buy in Franklin County

• Property record card — the Franklin County assessor / appraisal office. Pull the parcel's assessed-value history, exemption status, and last sale. This is the file your future tax bill is calculated from, and it shows whether the current owner is enjoying exemptions you will not inherit. County government sits in Union; the official county website is the reliable route to the parcel search and the office directory.
• Deeds & liens — the Franklin County recorder / land-records office. Read the deed chain, open liens, easements, and plat maps — the file a listing never mentions.
• Official flood determination. Check the exact parcel on FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer — not the listing site's licensed model. Zone boundaries cut through streets; the house next door can be in a different zone. Franklin County is the primary county for 20 ZIP codes in the Census Bureau's ZIP-to-county crosswalk — and zone lines ignore every one of them.
• The county's reported-crime record. In the FBI's 2024 file, agencies in Franklin County reported 1,461 offenses — 13.62 per 1,000 residents; the largest single category was larceny-theft (1,021). The crime section below sets that beside the Missouri county median.
• Registry check. Run the address through Missouri Sex Offender Registry (Missouri State Highway Patrol, Criminal Justice Information Services Division) and note the counts within a mile — then check again the week you close.
• Permits & code history — the Franklin building department. Open permits, expired permits, and code cases tell you whether the renovation in the photos was ever inspected. County permitting is run out of Union.
• School assignment — the district office, not the listing. Only the district's own boundary lookup confirms which school an address is actually zoned for.

County list, land area and population: U.S. Census Bureau (population: 2024 PEP estimate). County seat and official website: Wikidata (CC0), checked 2026-11-04. Flood determinations: FEMA. Registry: Missouri.

Reported crime in Franklin County — FBI 2024

Reported crime in Franklin County in 2024 was overwhelmingly property crime: agencies logged 1,461 offenses, of which 1,263 were property offenses and 198 violent. The total rate is 13.62 per 1,000 residents (violent 184.6, property 1177.6 per 100,000).

Inside Missouri, the median county in the same file recorded a violent-crime rate of 210 per 100,000 and a property-crime rate of 728 per 100,000 (medians computed from the FBI 2024 county file across 115 counties).

The largest reported categories were larceny-theft (1,021), aggravated assault (161) and motor vehicle theft (146).

Coverage: 9 of 9 law-enforcement agencies assigned to this county reported at least one month of 2024 offense data to the FBI; 7 reported all 12 months. Counts are reported offenses only (FBI Return A / Arson master files), assigned whole to each agency's primary county; they are not adjusted for non-reporting agencies.

These are offenses reported to law enforcement — not convictions, and not a verdict on any street or address. A CurbFacts report pairs this county record with the ZIP-level picture for the specific address you are buying.

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, UCR Return A + Arson master files, data year 2024 (pulled 2026-11-04).

The Missouri rules that apply in Franklin County

Traps researched for Missouri buyers: Odd-year reassessment can jump with no homestead cap; Meth-production disclosure is a specific statutory duty.

Read the full Missouri guide — disclosure standard, tax math, registry and flood

More Missouri counties

All Missouri counties · Missouri buyer guide