Understanding the Land Registry for Selling Your House

There’s a lot that goes into selling a home, from estate agents, price negotiations, solicitors, endless bills and a ton of paperwork. You might have heard of title deeds and HM Land Registry, and perhaps you’re wondering ‘what is Land Registry and what does it mean for my house sale?’.

We’re here to help with this informative article detailing everything you need to know about Land Registry and how it affects your house sale.

What is Land Registry and What Does it Do?

HM Land Registry is a non-ministerial government department that is responsible for registering ownership of all the land and property in England and Wales.

On request, they can provide owners with title deeds for their property, setting out important information like tenure (leasehold or freehold), legal ownership, boundaries, charges (such as a mortgage) and restrictions on use.

Whenever a house or land changes hands, the solicitors dealing with the sale will contact HM Land Registry to update them about the ownership.

What are Title Deeds?

Another question you probably have besides ‘what is Land Registry?’ is ‘what on earth are title deeds?’.  This could all sound quite strange to you, particularly if you are new to selling houses.

Title deeds are important documents that prove you are the owner of a property. If your property is registered to HM Land Registry (which most properties are), a copy of the title deeds will probably be with the solicitor who handled the sale. In any case, Land Registry will have a digital copy.

For houses that have been bought and sold many times, it is rare that the original title deeds are still around. Don’t worry, you don’t need those – all you need to be concerned with are the most up-to-date deeds demonstrating your ownership.

How to use Land Registry When Selling a House

There are a number of ways Land Registry can come in useful when selling a house.

Research house prices

If your property is on the market and you are looking for a new home, it’s a great idea to search for house prices in the area you want to move to using HM Land Registry data.

This is also a great resource to use if you are thinking about selling your house privately. Without an estate agent to help you through the process, you will need to decide on your sale price yourself. Using HM Land Registry to research what other similar houses in the area are selling for is a good first step.

Obtain title deeds if you don’t have them

You – or most likely your solicitor – will need access to the title deeds in order to sell your house. The deeds will need to be passed on to the buyer’s solicitor for the buyer to review and accept as part of the sale process.

If you’re selling a house and you don’t know where the title deeds are, you can either contact the solicitor who handled the original sale or you can ask your current solicitor to submit a request to HM Land Registry. If this doesn’t come to fruition, you will need to produce evidence to support your ownership claim.

Ready to Sell Your House Fast?

Selling a house can be a long-winded and complicated process, with all the paperwork and different parties involved.

If you just want to sell your house fast with a simple and easy-to-follow process, contact our team at Zoom Property Buyer to organise a fast house sale that is guaranteed to move quickly.

Give us a call on 0333 880 4362 or complete our online form today!