Title map (Northern Ireland): the registry map that shows the extent of a folio

A Northern Ireland title map shows where the land in one folio sits and how far it extends, drawn on Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland mapping. The base map supplies the buildings, streets, roads and railways. The registry lays its own markings over that base to show which land belongs to which folio.

The map never stands alone. Part 1 of the title folio for the same property describes the land in words and refers to any lease and any right over neighbouring land; the map is the drawing that description points to.

Take a semi-detached house on an invented street, 27 Whitebeam Meadows, Ballymena, as the example for this page. Its folio is registered in County Antrim as AN331902, and the map heading reads “County: Antrim; Folio: AN331902; Scale: 1:2500; Sheet 1 of 1”. The house and garden carry the letter “a”, and the key to folio labels beneath the map reads “a – AN331902”.

Older folios keep the plain numbers they were given when first opened, qualified by county, so a farm in County Tyrone might be headed “County: Tyrone; Folio: 6415”. Quote the whole folio number with its county; the registry’s own forms warn that an incomplete number can be matched to the wrong folio.

Start with the heading, then find the letter label for your folio, then match anything else on the map to an entry in the folio. These are the elements on the copy maps the registry issues, as at September 2026.

The register’s published guidance does not say what each edging colour means, as at September 2026, so do not assume that a colour marks freehold or leasehold; read the letter label and the key instead. A mark you cannot match to the key is explained in the folio.

A Northern Ireland title map settles where a folio is and roughly how far it runs; it does not settle the exact line of any boundary. Every copy map says so twice, in the words “for location purposes only” and “Folio boundaries are not guaranteed”. The registry stands behind the title in the folio, not the line on the map.

Responsibility for how accurately a boundary was drawn lies with the person who applied to register the land. On first registration the applicant lodges an Ordnance Survey map with the land outlined in red, and the registry’s markings follow that outline. If the outline was a metre out, the map is a metre out.

Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland also revises its mapping, and the register’s published guidance warns that after a revision the mapped features may no longer coincide with the registry’s markings. A hedge surveyed in 1985 and replaced by a fence in 2010 may sit differently on a newer base.

Boundaries can be made conclusive only with the agreement of every party affected and through a formal procedure at the registry. Errors on the map are corrected by rectification, again with the consent of everyone with an interest, including any lender holding a charge. A solicitor treats the map as the start of a boundary question, not the answer.

An apartment held under a registered lease has its own leasehold folio, and its map is the map for that folio. A lease of registered land for more than 21 years opens a new leasehold folio with an “L” at the end of its number, and Part 1 of that folio refers to the lease.

The register’s published guidance does not set out, as at September 2026, whether an individual apartment is drawn on the map or only the site it stands on. So order the title folio first for an apartment, read Part 1, and then order the map for the folio Part 1 identifies.

A freehold and a leasehold folio can exist for the same site, say AN407215 for the ground and AN407216L for a lease granted over it. Tell us which folio you hold, or give us the address and we confirm the folio before ordering.

The owner of 27 Whitebeam Meadows believes the fence her neighbour at number 29 rebuilt last spring stands a strip inside her garden, and she wants the map to prove it.

1. Order the title map for AN331902 and the map for the neighbouring folio, say AN331903. Both are extracts of the same registry map, so the two labelled areas should meet on the same line.
2. Read the two statements printed on each map: “for location purposes only” and “Folio boundaries are not guaranteed”. Neither map is evidence of the exact line.
3. Check the issue date and the base. If Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland surveyed the estate before the fences went up, the base may show nothing between the two gardens except the registry’s marking.
4. Order both title folios and read Part 3. A covenant to maintain a boundary fence is a burden recorded in words there, not a line on the map.
5. Photograph the old post holes, and keep any plan attached to the original transfer, because the registry’s marking follows the map the first applicant lodged.

The map will show whether the registry places the new fence inside the area labelled “a” for AN331902; it will not give a measurement or move the fence. That is the material a Ballymena solicitor works from, towards a written agreement between the two owners or, failing that, a court.

A buyer is looking at 14 acres of grazing on an invented townland near Enniskillen, held as “Folio 7188, County Fermanagh” and reached by a lane across the neighbouring farm. At 1:2500, 1 centimetre on the map is 25 metres on the ground, so a 4 metre gateway is a mark under 2 millimetres across. Whether the lane is drawn accurately matters far less than whether a right to use it exists.

On the uncertified copy map the buyer sees the fields labelled for folio 7188 and the lane as a base-map feature, nothing more, because that form shows folio boundaries only and may leave appurtenant rights out. On the certified copy the entries on the folio that relate to the map are shown, so a right of way recorded in Part 1 can appear on the map as well. For this purchase, ask for the certified form when you order.

The right also needs checking from the other side: an appurtenant right in favour of folio 7188 is a burden in Part 3 of the neighbouring farm’s folio, and both folios should agree. A lane simply used for decades with nothing on either folio is a right acquired by long use, which the register does not show.

Match the question to the record before ordering anything. Most boundary questions in Northern Ireland need the map and the folio read together, often with a neighbour’s folio too.

Order the map for both folios whenever a neighbour is involved; a gap or an overlap between the two labelled areas is worth knowing before anyone pays a surveyor.

A property that has never been registered has no folio and therefore no title map. Its deeds are recorded in the Registry of Deeds, a record of documents rather than of land, which keeps a written summary of each deed, called a memorial, and returns the original to whoever lodged it. A memorial describes the land in words, by street, town, townland and county.

Since 2003 every sale for value anywhere in Northern Ireland has had to be followed by first registration, and the Northern Ireland page sets out the dates area by area. A house not sold since then may still have no map.

If our search finds no folio for the address you give, we tell you rather than sending a map for a neighbouring folio; the how ordering works page explains the address check we make. For unregistered land there is no title map to supply.