A house move usually comes with a conveyancer, but the owner still has to live with what the property’s legal record says: who can cross the drive, whether anything may be built in the garden, and where the boundary really runs. HM Land Registry publishes free guidance for England and Wales on how to read the register and plan that record each registered property. This article summarises two GOV.UK guides, “How to read a title register” and “How to read a title plan” (published 4 November 2021), and the GOV.UK service page “Search for land and property information”. All three apply to England and Wales. The service page says searches for property in Scotland or Northern Ireland use different registers. This is general information, not legal advice, and Land Registry itself says it cannot give legal advice and that a legal adviser should be consulted if any entry is unclear.
What the register and plan are
When Land Registry registers a property it gives it a unique title number and prepares a register and, in most cases, a title plan. The register shows the names of the legal owners and whether there are mortgages, rights of way or other legal matters affecting the property. It also records whether the property is freehold or leasehold. Land Registry says the register and plan generally need to be read together.
The three parts of a register
- A: property. A brief description, whether freehold or leasehold, and any rights the property benefits from, such as a private right of way. For a leasehold, brief lease details appear, including the date and length. It can also mention things such as excepted mines and minerals or provisions about rights of light or air and boundary fences.
- B: proprietorship. The class of title, the registered owners’ names and contact addresses, sometimes the price paid, and any restrictions. Land Registry says restrictions limit an owner’s power to deal with the property, for example to sell or mortgage it without a lender’s or another person’s consent. It says a common one, entered when the owners are trustees, limits what one owner can do alone, and another guards against fraud by requiring a conveyancer’s certificate that the person selling is the registered owner.
- C: charges. Mortgages and other financial charges, tenancies that affect the property, and other rights and interests that limit how the land can be used, such as rights of way for others to cross it and restrictive covenants. Not every register has a C part.
Restrictive covenants and rights of way
The GOV.UK service page defines restrictive covenants as promises not to do certain things with the land, like not building on a particular area, and easements as the rights of one piece of land over another, like a right of way. The free property summary says whether either exists, but the service page says the details need the title register. It adds that in some cases the register will not set out the details but will say which documents do. The title plan guide gives a real-style example of a covenant in a 1983 conveyance stating that the purchaser will not use the land for any trade or business or permit a public nuisance or private inconvenience.
For movers, two consequences follow. A right of way for a neighbour over a drive or path can affect where a removal van can stand or where furniture can be carried, so it is worth reading the wording. A covenant on trade or business use matters to anyone planning to run a business from home. The site’s guide to parking suspensions for removal vans covers the public-road side of access.
Reading the title plan
The plan uses an Ordnance Survey extract, with red edging showing the extent of the registered land and black lines showing physical features. Land Registry says colours, letters and symbols sometimes link to entries in the register for easements, restrictive covenants or boundary agreements. Land shown edged in green has usually been removed from the title, such as a sold-off part of a garden.It also says the absence of a colour reference does not mean a property is free of easements, covenants or other agreements, because some are described in words in the register.
Land Registry cautions that the red edging cannot be treated as the exact legal boundary or as showing who owns a boundary feature, and that a measurement scaled off the plan should not be relied on to locate a boundary. It says title plans can look out of date because the earliest still in use were prepared over 100 years ago and the Ordnance Survey base map is not refreshed each time the map is revised. If neighbours agree the boundary’s precise position, the agreement can be recorded in the register of each property.
How to get the documents and what they cost
The GOV.UK service page says anyone can search for a property in England or Wales, even if they do not own it. The property summary is free. A title register or title plan costs £7 each to download, and a debit or credit card is needed. Official copies cannot be downloaded and are posted for £11 per document using form OC1. Downloaded copies cannot be used as proof of ownership, for example in a court case, while an official copy can be relied on to show the state of the register at the date and time it states.
Common questions
Can a title register replace legal advice?
No. Land Registry says it cannot give legal advice and recommends consulting a legal adviser about anything unclear.
The bottom line
For a property in England or Wales, the title register and plan set out ownership, mortgages, restrictions, rights of way and covenants, and they cost £7 each to download from GOV.UK. Reading the C part and the plan together before moving day shows what a new owner takes on. Land Registry warns that a plan’s red line is not an exact boundary and that a legal adviser should be consulted about anything unclear.