Land Registry search: what you can find and what it costs

"Land Registry search" covers several different things, and they answer different questions. The table below sorts them. Each row is explained in the sections that follow.

The title register is the legal record of a registered property. GOV.UK says it shows:

• the title number;
• who owns the property;
• the last sale price;
• whether there is a mortgage;
• restrictive covenants, which limit what you can do with the land;
• easements, which are rights of one property over another.

Sometimes the register does not list covenants or easements and says instead which documents do. Downloading it costs £7.

GOV.UK is clear that a downloaded copy cannot be used as proof of ownership. For that, for example in a court case, you need an official copy.

GOV.UK says official copies cannot be downloaded online. They cost £11 per document and are applied for by post, using form OC1 with the fee. HM Land Registry's fees page also lists a lower £7 official-copy fee through the portal or Business Gateway, which are business customer routes. For most people, the practical rule is: £7 to read it, £11 to prove it.

Many people searching "Land Registry" only want to know what a house sold for. That is a different data set from the register.

Price Paid Data records property sales in England and Wales submitted to HM Land Registry for registration. GOV.UK says it covers all residential property sales sold for value and lodged for registration, with standard entries from January 1995. It is released under the Open Government Licence and is freely available.

Its limits matter:

• It leaves out sales not lodged with HM Land Registry, sales not made for value, and some transfers such as discounted Right to Buy sales, gifts and court orders.
• Registration usually lags the sale by between 2 weeks and 2 months, so the most recent two months are incomplete.
• It is a record of sales. It is not a record of who owns a property today.

GOV.UK also has a "Search house prices" service where you find out how much a property sold for in England and Wales. Our free sold prices search lets you look up recorded sales by postcode district, and the sold prices tool is the postcode lookup. Neither is the legal register.

The title register is the official answer for registered property, because GOV.UK says it shows who owns the property. The steps are:

1. Get the exact address, or find it by postcode as above.
2. Search for it on the GOV.UK property search.
3. Download the title register for £7 and read the owner details.

Registered owner names and a general boundary plan become public once land is registered, and GOV.UK says you cannot opt out. If you need proof of ownership rather than information, order an official copy.

By owner name. The GOV.UK pages we read describe searching by address or location. They do not describe a search by owner name, so we do not claim one exists. If you do not know the address, the name alone is unlikely to be enough.

GOV.UK says you may be able to find past information, such as previous owners, in the deeds. HM Land Registry does not store original paper deeds. Where the register marks a deed as filed, it has a scanned copy. Each official copy of a document costs £11, and a set of deeds may be several documents, so the cost can add up. Searches can return nothing if no scanned copy exists.

HM Land Registry covers England and Wales only. Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate registers, and GOV.UK points to them from its price and property pages.

This page is general information. For a purchase or sale, a conveyancing solicitor will run the searches that matter for your case.