best way to locate and contact the owner of a property...

[treacletart]

My mate wants to buy part of a neighbour's disused garden. I beleive her dh has got hold of an owner's name from land registery, but they moved from the address he was given 25 years ago. The property is used as a takeaway restaurant and the tenant claims to have passed a request to the managing agents who apparantly said they were unable to help. MY suspicion is the tenant is being deliberately obstructive - surely the managing agents would be obliged to pass the request on to the owner? Anway, what would be the easiest way to trace and contact the owner do you think?

(1) Check with the land registry again
(2) Write to the post office and ask if they have a forwarding address.
(3) If all that fails, you can try to apply for possessory title - you'll be surprised how owners pop up if you apply for title, and if they don't you get the land anyway!

The latter is quite complicated though and will cost about £3k if unchallenged so make sure it's worth it.