How to find out who owns a property in the UK

What is free and what is not

These are the HM Land Registry fees at the time of writing, along with whether each option gives you a name.

The fees were last changed on 9 December 2024. If another website offers "free" owner details, check what you actually receive, and whether it is a current copy of the register. The official route costs £7.

How to get the title register

1. Go to Search for property information on GOV.UK.
2. Sign in, as the service asks you to do.
3. Search by address or postcode and choose the right property. A flat or a divided building may have more than one title.
4. Look at the free summary to confirm that you have the right title.
5. Pay £7 by debit or credit card and download the title register.

The service covers England and Wales only. You do not need to own the property: the rules allow any person to apply to inspect or obtain official copies, with limited exceptions.

What the register tells you

The title register usually shows the title number, who owns the property, how much it last sold for, whether it has a mortgage, and details of restrictive covenants and easements.

Three cautions apply. The registered owner is the legal owner, who may not live there. There can be more than one title, such as a freehold of a building and a lease of a flat in it. And a downloaded copy cannot be used as proof of ownership. For that you need an official copy, which costs £11 and arrives by post.

When the owner is a company

If the owner is a company, more free information is available. HM Land Registry publishes free datasets of UK companies and overseas companies that own property in England and Wales. You need an account to download them, and they are large files, so they suit research more than a quick check. Private individuals are not included.

Once you have a company name, Companies House records are free to search. The same applies to the Register of Overseas Entities, which requires overseas entities that buy, sell or transfer UK land to disclose their beneficial owners.

If the property does not appear

First check the address. If it still does not appear, HM Land Registry can search the index map for you for £8. You give the address, or a plan if there is no address, and you should get the result in under a week.

The property may also be unregistered. Registration has been compulsory on sale across England and Wales since 1990, and HM Land Registry says the main reason a property is missing is that there has been no sale or mortgage since registration became compulsory in its area. In its own words, if land is unregistered, "we will not know who the owners are". An unregistered property is not a warning sign. It may just mean that nobody has sold it for a long time. A solicitor can advise if you have a legal reason to go further.

You also cannot work this the other way round. HM Land Registry says that, in general, you cannot search for all properties owned by an individual.

What a Doorstep Report shows, and what it does not

A Doorstep Report does not name owners. Where the data is available, it shows tenure indicators and company or overseas interest indicators, and registered sale prices from 1995. A flag means a related record has been marked, and it does not verify who holds the title. No flag, or no data, proves nothing. For a name, the title register is the source.

Using the information, and other parts of the UK

The register is a public record, but the people on it are entitled to their privacy. Use it for the purpose you need it for, such as checking a seller or a boundary question, and take advice from a solicitor or conveyancer if there is a dispute.

Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate registers. In Scotland, title sheets can be bought through ScotLIS. In Northern Ireland, a Land Registry folio shows the current registered owner. Land and Property Services takes requests by email, telephone or appointment, and it lists £7 for an uncertified copy.