Buying in Preston County, West Virginia

Preston County at a glance

Preston County is one of 55 counties and county-equivalents in West Virginia. Its county seat is Kingwood. County government publishes its offices and parcel tools online. Official county website. Its 2024 Census Bureau population estimate is 34,055 across 649 square miles of land — about 52 people per square mile. In the FBI's 2024 reported-crime file, agencies here reported 154 offenses — 4.52 per 1,000 residents; the breakdown is below.

Records to check before you buy in Preston County

• Property record card — the Preston 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 Kingwood; the official county website is the reliable route to the parcel search and the office directory.
• Deeds & liens — the Preston 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. Preston County is the primary county for 14 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 Preston County reported 154 offenses — 4.52 per 1,000 residents; the largest single category was larceny-theft (80). The crime section below sets that beside the West Virginia county median.
• Registry check. Run the address through West Virginia Sex Offender Registry (West Virginia State Police) and note the counts within a mile — then check again the week you close.
• Permits & code history — the Preston 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 Kingwood.
• 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: West Virginia.

Reported crime in Preston County — FBI 2024

Agencies in Preston County reported 154 offenses to the FBI in 2024 — 34 violent and 120 property offenses. That works out to a reported-crime rate of 4.52 per 1,000 residents (violent 99.8, property 352.4 per 100,000).

Inside West Virginia, the median county in the same file recorded a violent-crime rate of 168 per 100,000 and a property-crime rate of 515 per 100,000 (medians computed from the FBI 2024 county file across 55 counties).

The largest reported categories were larceny-theft (80), motor vehicle theft (22) and aggravated assault (19).

Coverage: 8 of 8 law-enforcement agencies assigned to this county reported at least one month of 2024 offense data to the FBI; 2 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 West Virginia rules that apply in Preston County

Traps researched for West Virginia buyers: Agent duty is not seller duty.

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

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