Who Owns the Cell Tower on My Land?
Many tower ground leases were signed with a carrier or a small developer and have changed hands since. The rent keeps arriving, sometimes under a new name on the cheque, but the company holding the lease today may be several sales removed from the one that signed it.
Start with the FCC record
Every structure that needed FAA notice — anything over 200 feet, and shorter structures near airports — is registered with the FCC, and the registration names the structure's owner. Find your county on this site, look for a structure near you of the right height, and open its FCC record from the registration number. The record shows the owner entity, its address and a contact.
Of the 140,917 constructed structures in the registry, American Tower, SBA and Crown Castle groups own the most; together with carriers, railroads, utilities and broadcasters they account for most of the rest. Individuals and family trusts own a few thousand; this site withholds their names.
Why the names are strange
Tower companies hold towers through many subsidiaries, often named after the deal that brought them in. "CCATT LLC" and "Pinnacle Towers LLC" are Crown Castle entities, listed in Crown Castle's own SEC filings; "SBA 2012 TC Assets, LLC" is SBA's. The owner pages group the registrant names that carry a brand or appear in a parent's SEC subsidiary list, and show each family's filing names so you can match the one on your record.
When the FCC record isn't enough
The registry names the owner of the structure, which on leased land is normally your tenant. Confirm it against three other things: the name on your rent payments, any assignment notice you received when the tower was sold, and the memorandum of lease recorded with your county. If those disagree, ask the payer for a copy of the assignment before you sign anything new — including a buyout or an extension.
Knowing the tenant matters most when an offer arrives: if a lease buyer approaches you, the tower company may also make an offer, and the two will value your lease differently. The buyout calculator shows what the rent is worth to you.
Questions
How do I find out who owns a cell tower?
Look the structure up in the FCC Antenna Structure Registration by location or registration number. The record names the owner entity and a contact. This site's county pages and lookup list every constructed registration with its owner.
Why does the owner name not match the company I signed with?
Towers change hands. Carriers sold large portfolios to tower companies, and tower companies hold towers through many subsidiaries, so the current registrant is often a different legal entity from the original tenant.