How to find out who owns a house or property

Why find out who owns a property?

Having this kind of information can be invaluable for a wide range of reasons, whether it’s getting independent verification that the facts you’re being told about the property are accurate, or whether you want to know if a property developer is buying up many homes in your area, or even if you don’t have any interest in buying and are simply curious about the ownership.

The good news is that it’s not a very complicated process to finding out who owns a house or flat that you’d like to know more about. At LDN Properties we know the exact steps to take because finding out about owners is a core part of how we do business, because we give homeowners exclusive speedy and generous offers for buying their houses and flats.

How do I find out who owns a specific house or flat?

Being able to identify the owner of a home is a crucial step in the selling process, and many properties are listed on the Land Registry, which is a non-ministerial UK government department that registers the ownership of homes throughout England and Wales.

Unfortunately, not every house or flat is listed on the HM Land Registry and trying to sell an unregistered house can create some additional hurdles that will have to be overcome.

But for those properties that are listed on the HM Land Registry, finding out the ownership can be as simple as putting the specific house number or name along with its postcode into the department’s search engine. For a small fee (currently £3) you will be able to download a copy of the title register, which is a document that will tell you who owns the property, along with the price they paid for it or its value stated information if the house or flat was sold from April 2000 onward.

The title register is also very important to potential property buyers because it will tell you whether there are any rights of way or restrictions on the land. For some buyers these provisions can sometimes make the difference between walking away or making an offer to buy.

If your search on the HM Land Registry is not successful, you might also be able to find out home ownership details by conducting a similar search on the Land Charges Registry. This should reveal any information about bankruptcies, second mortgages, and other issues that might be considered as potential obstacles to attempting to buy the property.

What do I do if online searches don’t help me find a home’s owner?

Of course, sometimes you might struggle to find out the owner of a house or flat because the property that you’re looking at is currently empty, a recently inherited property or otherwise abandoned. If that’s the case and you don’t have any luck finding out the owner’s identify through online searches, you might want to consider leaving a note at the property expressing interest in chatting with the owner and leaving your contact details. Many people have succeeded in discovering owners this way.

As more of a last resort you might want to consider a professional search agency, which will often by classified as a detective agency in newspaper or internet advertisements. If you hire a professional from one of these businesses, they will be able to do extensive work on your behalf to try finding out the owner of whatever house or flat you are curious about. But the downside is that these search agencies typically charge quite a lot of money for conducting the search, with some firms making people pay fees of a few hundred pounds to find a property owner.