What is Unregistered Land?

Unregistered land refers to any land or property that has not been registered with the Land Registry. Land which is unregistered means the details of the land is  only documented in the Title Deeds and is not centrally recorded with the Land Registry with a valid title number.

Registered land is assigned a unique reference number and all information that relates to the land is stored at the Land Registry, thereby eliminating the need for physical Title Deeds to be retained.

Official Copy Entries can be obtained from the Land Registry which provide key details of ownership, restrictions, covenants, boundaries and any private rights.

The majority of land in England and Wales is registered with the Land Registry and refers to land which has not changed ownership for around forty years. The Land Registration Act 1925 made registration mandatory and it was gradually phased in until by 1990, whereby any transfer of land or property triggered a registration. This was reinforced by the succeeding Land Registration Act 2002.

Risks to Unregistered Land:

• Proving Ownership - Possessing unregistered land requires any deeds  to be present, complete and correct. Failure to do so may mean there will be issues in proving ownership and thereby the right to sell the land. This can be somewhat more difficult if the property is being sold on behalf of a deceased. It can be a somewhat difficult task to locate full Title Deeds for an Executor of a will.

• Property Fraud - While it is a obscure event, purely due to the limited amount of unregistered land remaining, it is all far too easy. There have been case by where people have fraudulently applied for First Registration and thereby become the land owners but also where unregistered land has been sold by fraudsters.

There have been several public cases which have been made popular by the media  in where victims have been defrauded of their ownership of unregistered land. Sophisticated high level scams, whilst rare, can be avoided by opting for First Registration.

If you are looking to register your land or you require assistance with the First Registration of your property, please contact us for more.