Finding the contact details of the owner of a piece of land

[Fespital]

Land unregistered on land registry.
Visited council offices (pre covid) and found micro fiche for planning permission (1970s) with owner name and address.
Bingo right?
Nope. Address doesn't exist anymore as the houses were knocked down for new buildings. (As if the owner still lived there but could always hope!)
I had the owner's name still but after months of research they are apparently deceased. (Confirmed local gossip).

So the land must have passed down to someone. How on earth do I find out who?

Council managed to contact 'the' owner a few years ago because it was attracting vermin and rubbish. It's now cleared once a year (probably the council). I contacted the council to ask if they could pass on my details to the owner with a view to buying the land and stopping the annual eyesore clear up but the council said no due to data protection.

What that confirmed was they managed to find the owner so it must be possible to but how?

You can order probate details for a small fee. It helps if you know at least roughly when the person died. That might tell you who inherited the estate.

Local gossip isn't that accurate but it's a fairly uncommon surname so will give it a go thank you.

I've gone way back to the year I know landowner signed the planning application. Nothing on the wills register. I'm open to any other avenues.

You can apply for PP for land you don’t own so that might be a red herring. If the owner did die recently and the ownership changed after probate then I’m pretty sure that the transfer would have forced the land to be registered. My property law is pretty rusty but I think the aim of the Land Registration Act 2002 was to get as much land as possible registered. The only unregistered plots will be things that have not changed hands for a long time.

Also watching with interest as we have similar issue.

@chloechloe

You can apply for PP for land you don’t own so that might be a red herring. If the owner did die recently and the ownership changed after probate then I’m pretty sure that the transfer would have forced the land to be registered. My property law is pretty rusty but I think the aim of the Land Registration Act 2002 was to get as much land as possible registered. The only unregistered plots will be things that have not changed hands for a long time.

That's an interesting thing I didn't know. So when land passes from one person to another through death the registration of the land becomes compulsory?

I make no judgement with this next statement but I've been led to believe the owner was a gypsy. Might there be a more informal way land passes from one person to another?