For almost every home in England and Wales the answer is on the title register kept by HM Land Registry. Part B of the register, the proprietorship register, names the registered owner or owners and gives an address for them; if the owner is a company it gives the company's name and number. Where the home last sold for money on or after 1 April 2000, part B also shows the price paid; part C, the charges register, names any mortgage lender.
What is free, and what is not
- GOV.UK's free property summary tells you the tenure and whether the register mentions restrictive covenants or easements, but not the owner's name.
- GOV.UK sells a £7 download of the register. It names the owner, but GOV.UK says the download is not an official copy and cannot be used as proof of ownership.
- An official copy of the register is the document a court accepts as the register itself. HM Land Registry supply it electronically to businesses connected to them, which is how it arrives in a Homeproof certificate, usually within minutes between 6.30am and 11pm any day, read in and explained.
When the register will not tell you
Some land has never been registered: typically land that has not changed hands since compulsory registration reached its area, which for some places was as late as 1990. HM Land Registry hold nothing for unregistered land, and the deeds are wherever the owner or their lender keeps them. The free check tells you whether the address matches a registered title before anything is charged, so you never pay for a register that does not exist. Scotland and Northern Ireland keep their own registers, which this service does not cover.
What the check shows
The free check shows the tenure, the price history from HM Land Registry's price paid data, and where a company owns the title, what Companies House says about it. The title register names the owner.