Land Registry Searches

Among the sources of information that are publicly available are those from the Land Registry. Amongst other things, you can find out who is the owner of any house or land that is registered, how much it sold for, whether it is leasehold or freehold, and if there is a mortgage on the property. You can also get a plan of the property. As you can imagine this information is of great interest to people who work in property businesses, but the Land Registry offers a useful service to the people searcher as well.

You can find the Land Registry at http://www.landregisteronline.gov.uk/ and you can order documents online. The whole process is very easy. Currently a copy of the Title Register will cost you just £3.00. There are many commercial companies that will sell you property information at a mark up. For a difficult search it might be worth it. In that case I recommend you to Colin Johnston at Adflow Ltd http://www.adflow.co.uk/

A people searcher may find it useful to run a title search when you suspect that someone lives at an address, but that they do not show on the public electoral register. Is this sneaky? Maybe it is, but sometimes you have to think laterally to work out how to get the information you need to locate someone.

I suspect that this is what marks out the really good investigator – the ability to discover information legally that other people cannot.

Can you think of any other unusual ways to confirm an address and close the case? If so, please share it with me and your idea could appear in these pages. Go on, give it a try!

I have other methods myself and I will share them with you over time, but any of us could learn more.

Until next time ...