Land Registry Title Deeds and Plans for the UK and Ireland

Title Deeds are the proof of ownership of a property or a piece of land. They have a habit of disappearing in the modern home. Solicitors and Mortgage Lenders, like Building Societies, used to keep these documents. Nowadays the individual owner usually has possession of this information. It is very valuable information, as a house is probably the most expensive purchase that most people will ever make. So what happens when they are needed and they cannot be found.

First of all a definition of the term title deeds is needed. This used to refer to all the documents that showed ownership and information about a property or piece of land and could be very bulky. Since 1975 all properties have to be registered with the government land registry in England and Wales when they are bought and sold. More than 83% of all land and properties have now been registered. If this is a first registration all the details are extracted by the Land Registry and usually put into three places. Firstly the Property Register is created. This contains information on the owner(s) of the property, whether it is freehold or leasehold and since 2000 the price of the house when it was sold. It also contains details of any mortgages or other charges on the property as well as details of any covenants made by previous owners. Secondly some of this information may be recorded in separate documents called Registered Documents.. If this is the case they will be referred to in the Property Register as being in separate documents. The final document is the Title Plan which is an overhead view of the outline of the property and shows the boundary usually marked in red.