Guides to property records in England and Wales

Each guide answers one question people bring to the register, in the order a conveyancer would take it: what the record is, where the answer sits in it, what the record cannot tell you, and which document to order. Every guide is written from the register’s published guidance and from genuine official copies, and ends with ten short answers to the questions people actually search.

• How to find out who owns a property: the five-step method, what the proprietorship register shows about the owner, and what to do when the land is unregistered.
• Free land registry search: what is free and what is not: the public sources that cost nothing, what each one leaves out, and when only an official copy will do.
• Which side of the fence do I own?: T marks, covenants to maintain, boundary agreements, and what happens when every record is silent.
• Freehold vs leasehold: how to check which one you have: the first entry of the property register, the two titles behind a flat, share of freehold, and how to work out the years left on a lease.
• Restrictive covenants: how to find them on the register: where covenant entries sit, how to read a schedule, what “Copy filed” means, and what to check before an extension or a change of use.
• Previous owners of a property: historical editions of the register: what an earlier edition shows, how far back the electronic history goes, and the route for years the register does not cover.

• Title register: ownership, tenure, mortgages, restrictions and covenants for one title.
• Title plan: the extent of the land edged in red on an Ordnance Survey base.
• Conveyancing pack: the lease, transfer and other deeds the register refers to and holds on file.
• Title deeds: what the phrase means today and where older deeds are kept.

Scotland and Northern Ireland keep separate registers with their own documents, so the guides above apply to England and Wales only. The Scotland and Northern Ireland pages explain the title sheet, the title folio and their maps.

• Reviewed by Ciara, Editor. Last reviewed: 30 September 2026.