How Can I Find Out Who Owns a Property?

The short answer

If the property or land is registered, the title register is the record that normally answers the question. Its proprietorship section names the registered owner — the person, company or other body registered as proprietor — along with an address for service. Anyone can order it; you do not need any connection to the property.

People ask this question for all sorts of legitimate reasons: approaching a neighbour about a boundary or overhanging tree, tracing the owner of an empty property or plot next door, checking who a landlord actually is, or doing due diligence before making an offer. The steps are the same in each case.

Step by step

1. Identify the property or land precisely. For a house, the postal address usually suffices. For a flat, note the flat number — the flat has its own leasehold title, separate from the building's freehold. For land without an address, such as a paddock or strip of verge, it needs to be identified from a map.
2. Order the title register for that property. If more than one title could match the address, the right one needs to be confirmed before ordering — this is a point where a human check helps.
3. Read the proprietorship register. This section names the registered proprietor and gives an address for service. It may also record the class of title and, where it was recorded, the price paid.
4. Follow up if the owner is an organisation. If the proprietor is a UK company, its officers and filings can be checked free of charge at Companies House. If the proprietor is trustees, the trustees named are the legal owners on behalf of the trust.

Caveats worth knowing before you order

The register is the authoritative record for registered land, but a few situations trip people up:

• Unregistered land. Not all land in England and Wales is registered. Land that has not changed hands for a long time may never have been registered, and unregistered land simply has no title register — so there is no register entry to name an owner.
• Registration delays after a sale. After completion, there is a processing period before the new owner appears on the register. A property sold recently may still show the previous owner for a while.
• Company, trustee and other non-individual owners. The register names the registered proprietor as it stands. That may be a company, a housing association, a local authority or trustees rather than the person you see at the property.
• Overseas entities. Overseas companies that own UK property are also required to appear on a separate register of overseas entities maintained by Companies House. That is a distinct regime from the title register; the title register still names the entity as proprietor in the normal way.
• Flats and buildings. The leasehold register for a flat names the leaseholder; the freehold register for the building names the freeholder. Order the title that matches your question.

One property at a time

This service exists for individual, legitimate enquiries — a specific property or piece of land you have a genuine reason to look into. It is not a route to building databases of owners, compiling marketing lists or harvesting ownership records in bulk, and we do not support requests of that kind.

Ordering the register

You can order the title register through our service: give us the address or describe the land, and we identify the registered title by hand, contacting you first if more than one title could match, then deliver the register as a PDF through a secure link. You can also buy directly from HM Land Registry, which usually costs less; our fee covers the human address checking, retrieval, secure delivery and support.

This article is general information, not legal advice. If ownership is disputed, or the land appears to be unregistered, a solicitor can advise on how to take it further.