How Can I Prove I Own My House?
How can you prove that you own a piece of land, or the house where you live if you are asked to do so? It’s not something which many of us will ever come across, but should you run into a legal dispute with your neighbours over a boundary or a right of access issue it’s important to know where to start. We’d always advise getting professional legal advice from a property expert if you’re embroiled in a legal dispute, but there are basic checks which anyone can do to establish who owns what.
Any time a property is bought or sold, there is a lot of paperwork generated, with searches carried out by lawyers and conveyancers, and lots of correspondence. This huge bundle of property paperwork will be kept by your lawyers in most cases, and it will be used again when you come to sell the property at some point in the future. Most homeowners who are purchasing a property with a mortgage will never see the deeds to their property, as these are usually kept by the mortgage company. So if some of the paperwork is with the lawyers, and some is with the mortgage company, how can you prove your entitlement to your land?
Land Registry
The Land Registry is a central government database for all land in England and Wales, and most dwelling houses and commercial buildings will be listed on the Land Registry. If you log into their website using the property’s postcode, it’s easy to see what information is held about that property online. For most property disputes involving houses, all you will need to do is pay the small fee to the Land Registry to either download the documents, or have them sent to you.
Not all land is registered though and it is often the case that small parcels of land are not listed on the Land Registry. However, that doesn’t mean that nobody owns the land, and that you can just start parking there or growing vegetables there. Although there may be no details on the Land Registry site to download, they may still have details of the owner, who will hold the title deeds in a physical format. On rare occasions, the ownership of a property is still unclear. Perhaps the owner is a company which has been dissolved, or the owner has died with no family to inherit. In these situations, ownership reverts to the Crown.
Should I Keep My Deeds?
Once you have paid off your mortgage or any other loans secured on your property, the mortgage company will write and ask what you’d like to do with the deeds and paperwork. These are important legal documents, and although many people are happy to keep them in a safe place at home, the other option is to ask your bank or lawyers about storage. There will be a small fee for keeping your documents, but many tenants think this is worth it for the peace of mind.