Title Register
Official record of ownership and burdens
A title register is the official record of who owns a registered plot and what binds it. Three parts make it up: the property register, the proprietorship register and the charges register. Between them they describe the land, name the owner and list mortgages, covenants and rights. HM Land Registry maintains it for England and Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland keep separate registers.
What This Means
Propbar unlocks the register for this property for £19. You get the current owner, any mortgages, restrictions and covenants, plus the register extract and title plan. Reading it early shows what your offer actually buys, weeks before your conveyancer reports. Nothing in it changes life here day-to-day; it records rights rather than creating them. It matters when you sell, extend, or borrow against the plot. This is one of the few things on this report that lenders and insurers price directly: your lender's solicitor reads this same register before releasing funds.
Practical Advice
- Compare the owner named in the proprietorship register against the seller named on the agent's paperwork.
- Ask your conveyancer whether every mortgage shown as active will be discharged on completion.
- Send the title plan to your surveyor and ask whether the red boundary matches what you were shown.
- Ask your conveyancer to order the filed deeds that register entries refer to, which are separate documents.
Key Points
- A register naming two proprietors where the listing names one seller means completion needs both signatures.
- HM Land Registry sells its own official copies at £7 each through its portal, or £11 by post, covering the register and the plan as separate documents.
Additional Information
Where a plot has never been sold or mortgaged since registration became compulsory in its area, no register exists and there is nothing to buy. Compulsory registration arrived at different dates, area by area. Your conveyancer then has to prove ownership from the paper deeds instead.