Finding out history of house

[Yellowbutterfly1]

How would you find out about the history of an old house?
There is a very old house near me that sold off a piece of land about 50 years ago. Is there any way to find out if there are any covernents ? On the land that was sold or would that be a private confidential matter?

I looked on the land registry website but couldn’t even find the piece of land. When I looked up my own house it didn’t really give very much information.

You could look on the council's planning permission portal to see if planning permission has ever been requested for anything. It wouldn't turn up covenants though. I'd search using postcode rather than street address, as the land may not have its own address

We are in the process of buying what we think is a 1930's home. I'd love to know more of the history of it too. Is there a local historical group near you? Have you looked up census records? I'd think only your solicitor would know about covenants though.

Covenants will be on the deeds of the property sold.

Covenants are seldom on land registry. Many banks and building societies started destroying them in the 80s and 90s and many covenants were lost.
Look on the Council site for planning around the location. There may be a map of the area and show if it belongs to a particular property. Neighbours adjacent to the house/ land may have a copy of any deeds with any similar covenants. My house is very old and I only got a copy of the deeds by chance before the solicitor destroyed them. They have details and measurements of a long standing border dispute that I was unaware of which was settled many years ago. You can also refer to tithe maps if the house is very old.

I was sent a huge envelope many years ago from Halifax when I moved my mortgage to them. It contained all the original documents and deeds from when the house was built.
I’m pleased they did send them as I certainly hadn’t seen them before and once the mortgage was paid all I get to see is what you down load for £3. (Not a lot at all)

We recently found out a lot of information about the deeds on my late mother's house by downloading both the title register and title plan land of the house next door from the land registry. It included quite a bit of information, including covenants relating to mum's house (bought before the requirement to register deeds on purchase). Censors might also be useful to see what properties were occupied, but the most recent to view is 1911 and wouldn't help with land only.

Our council has an online planning site. However it only goes back ?10 years or so but other information before that was available if you requested it from the planning office. Someone had to fish it out of filing. Though that service won't be working at the moment as they are working not much from home.

If you happen to live in Wales, the Welsh Newspaper Archive throws up some gems. Also sites like Find My Past. We've found out loads about our Victorian house, including past owners, who it was built for and the fact it was a B&B let during the summer.

There's an English equivalent of the newspaper archive but you have to pay.

You need visibility of form TP1 relating to the property / land. I'm buying at the moment and the house has a number of covenants dating back to 1905.

I wonder if the general public would be allowed to see the TP1 form if they are not the owner