A Land registry query

mountainofdebt

Is the ownership of all land in the UK registered with the Land Registry ?

The reason I ask is that there is a query regarding who owns a piece of land and yet a search with the Land Registry shows no details of ownership.

Is there any other way of finding out who owns the land?

reehsetin

some land still remains unregistered, but the next time it is sold it has to be registered, i believe you have to search through title deeds think it is, trying to find my notes

Debt_Free_Chick

Anything sold since ....? 2002 I think has been automatically registered on the LR.

If something was bought before then, then registration is voluntary, so it's entirely feasible that there are plenty of properties/parcels of land not on the LR.

noyk

A lot of rural land is not registered (and even quite a lot of urban and semi-rural), the goverment are encouraging land owners to register but they are not being that successful. If there is not record in the land registry the other places to look are in parish records and by asking the council or local people - if none of them help stick a big sign on the land saying if you own this piece of land call this number because i'm going to register it! Well, the last one is just an idea but i imagine it will almost certainly work!

paddy's_mum

Huge chunks of the land in the UK remains unregistered for one of only a few main reasons. Compulsory registration was brought in, in chunks and stages, so that for example, Surrey became compulsory in (I believe) the 1970's but for parts of, say, Lincolnshire, it did not happen until 1988 or 1989.

Any land which has not sold within that time is not, therefore, registered. A neighbour of ours bought her land in 1946, with her husband and her son as joint owners. He died in the late 80's, she took it over by virtue of the co-ownership. She died in January 07 and still the land will not be registered because her son still lives. The land has not been 'sold' to an extent where change of ownership must be recorded with the Land Registry.

Often the simplest way to find out who owns unregistered land is to check with the local council whether any kind of taxes are being levied/paid or else ask around the local old-timers and see if anyone has any idea.

Debt_Free_Chick

Just as a general observation, it's not necessarily a problem if land is not registered. You only have to prove that you own it and this used to be the original purpose of the "title" deeds - they prove "title" i.e. ownership. If you hold the deeds, your name is on them as the owner and you can prove who you are, then registering the land is not really of any benefit to you.

If - like me - you're a bit of a nosey-parker, then not having the land registered is incrediby frustrating if you want/need to know who owns what. But if you are an owner, then .... there's not really an issue, provided you can prove ownership.

mountainofdebt

I knew I could rely on MSErs to come up with the answer.

The reason I'm asking is that,through my work, there has been a question raised about who owns a piece of land but we've drawn a blank when the matter was raised by investigations with the local council and the land registry.

Hopefully your answers will earn me some brownie points