How to find out if neighbouring properties are council owned?

Wine_of_the_World

I have been googling but cant find the answer.

Basically is there a way to tell whether the neighbouring houses to a property are private or council / housing association?

googler

Round my way, the council have embarked on various refurb and improvement exercises over the years, so I can match the properties that are/were council owned by the style of the front door, the exterior light beside the front door, the small porch over the front door, etc. There may be similar in your area.

Armed with a list of these, look at Zoopla, and any which have a sale record at a ridiculously low price are those that the residents have bought under right-to-buy. Any with realistic prices are those which have been resold since being bought under right-to-buy. When the council houses round my were purchased, usually the first thing the new owner would do would be to repaint the 'council door' so that the place looked their own, and these are easy to spot, too.

Anything left after discounting those is probably still council-owned.

pops5588

Our solicitor told us that for an extra charge he could do a registry search of houses neighbouring/nearby. I think it was about £6.

AnnieO1234

It's £3.00 for a copy of the title register, you won't need a plan which is the additional £3 a PP quoted above.

Here's why you're not going to find what your looking for:

1. You would have to look up every individual property you want to check.

2. Both HAs and LAs could buy any property to accommodate a specific family.

3. Private landlords who simply rent out on ASTs won't be visible as unlike leases, ASTs do not need to be registered at Land Registry.

New build estates tend to have a requirement for a percentage of social housing, but this can include staircased rental/ownership schemes.

theartfullodger

Do a search (£3 each) on land registry
http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/
& it will tell you who owns any property on the register..

Clearly you are no snob or disliker of the certain classes and would be quite happy to live next to council or HA tenants: I've even hear some can be quite nice.. (still have friends from when I did..)