How can you find out who owns a house?

[erebus]

...If it's not on the online Land Registry?

I wish to find out whether a property was transferred from a deceased person (who probably held it solely) to his surviving spouse.

Do an index map search at the land registry. that will tell you if the land is registered or not.

From a certian date, all transactions in that particular area will have meant that the property had to become registered. Find out the date for that area, and if the property is unregistered it might not have been transferred, although from memory I think that only transactions for value (ie not probate transfers) were registrable at the time. the relvant land registry will be able to help you out over this.

Where on the Land Registry site is that? Where I can find out when the area was required to have all properties registered. (It's Cornwall, btw!)

I have already done the 'find a property' there, with the exact address, but it tells me there's no information on the property.

The deceased died in 1996. I am trying to find out if a person who died intestate had the property registered solely in their name and what has happened since then.

resolution- I'm the person on the other thread trying to establish whether a will can be contested!

If the deceased and his spouse held it as joint tenants there would be no transfer required and no mention in a will since jointly held property passes automatically to the other joint tenant upon death, with no further action required.

It sounds like this is what happened, as otherwise there would be something at the land registry if he died 15 years ago.

As resolution says, it may be that at the time he bought it or had it transferred to him in probate, there was no registration in that area

Of course the other option is that he didn't own the property at all, that it has been held in the same ownership of someone else since pre-registration, and he occupied it under lease or licence.

HTH

erebus - it sounds like you will need to contact the Land Registry by phone. Property that has not been bought and sold in the last 15 -20 years might not be on the electronic record.

The LR will do a manual search of their record but you will have to pay.

freshmint, there is a whole other thread on the background to this question that sets out why the OP suspects the house was owned by the predeceased husband alone (not jointly with the now-deceased surviving wife) and was never transferred to the wife at the time of his death.

Where one joint tenant dies, it is usual to send a copy of the death certificate to the land registry and they update the register to remove the deceased's name. Would such a transaction be a trigger for first registration in 1996? I don't know what triggers first registration other than a normal sale.

Knock on the door and ask.

blimey multiple threads? didn't see it sorry

If you ring them, the land registry will tell you when compulsory registration came in there. Mention that if it was transferred then it was a probate transfer.

Then report back.

If you go on the HM Land Registry website there are a number of forms, one of which is for an index map search. Google it. It's the first hit.

Thanks, all. And yes, I will report back as the potential drama unfolds!

Intrigued to hear how it all goes!