How to Check What Land You Own: Title Plan, Boundaries and the Next Field

Most owners know their land by its fields and gateways, while HM Land Registry knows it by title numbers, and the two do not always line up. A farm put together from several purchases over sixty years can sit under five or six titles, and a strip by the road can belong to none of them. Checking what you own means turning the farm you know into a list of titles you can prove, and spotting any gap between the two before anyone else does.

1. Find every title in your name. A search of the index of proprietors' names lists the titles registered to a name. HM Land Registry's practice guide says you will receive a list of titles that are owned by, or mortgaged to, the name searched, at £15 a name on form PN1.
2. Search the map for anything the name search missed. An official search of the index map, on form SIM, shows whether a piece of land you mark on a plan is registered and under which title numbers. It also shows land that is the subject of a pending application for first registration.
3. Download the register and plan for each title. The register is the written record; the title plan is the map. Each title has one of each.
4. Read each register in full. It has three parts, and an entry that matters, such as a right of way or a restriction, can sit in any of them.
5. Lay every plan over the land. Walk the boundaries with the plans in hand and mark where a hedge, fence or ditch strays from the red line, and any corner that seems to belong to no title at all.
6. Order the deeds the register refers to. Where the register quotes an old conveyance for a covenant or a right, a copy of that document fills in the detail.

The name search has limits worth knowing. The same practice guide warns that it does not distinguish between different people with the same name, matches only the exact spelling searched, and that a negative result does not prove a person owns nothing in England and Wales, because unregistered land never appears on it. Search every spelling the family has used, and any farming company name.

Whose name you may search matters too. The guide allows anyone to search their own name or a company's, but searching another person's name needs a sufficient interest, and the Registry rejects an application without one. Personal representatives may search a late parent's name on production of the relevant evidence, which is worth doing if land may never have been transferred out of it. Because the fee is charged per name, searching a current and a former name costs £30.

You download the register and plan from HM Land Registry's online service, or order official copies by post, and you order copies of older deeds by title number where the Registry holds them. Our step-by-step guide to selling land for development gives the download and official copy fees and the basic checks; this section goes further into what each document is for.

Owners asking how to get their title deeds are often surprised by the answer. GOV.UK states that HM Land Registry does not store original paper deeds and holds scanned copies only for some properties: if a document is marked as 'filed' in the register, the Registry has a scan, and each official copy of a document costs £11. A set of old deeds can run to several documents, each charged separately. Where nothing is filed, the originals are wherever the family left them, often with the solicitor who acted on the last purchase or with a bank that once held a mortgage.

Since the register became the proof of ownership, old paper deeds of registered land matter less than they did, with one exception: the register often refers to them rather than repeating them. A charges register that says land is subject to 'the covenants contained in the Conveyance dated 1958' tells you that a covenant exists, and only the deed tells you what it says.

The class of title, near the top of the proprietorship register, tells you how strongly the Registry stands behind the entry. HM Land Registry's guide to reading a title register says the best and most common classes are absolute freehold and absolute leasehold title. A weaker class, such as possessory or qualified title, is worth knowing about early, because a buyer's solicitor will ask why the Registry did not grant absolute title.

Read the register and plan together. An entry such as 'the land edged and numbered in green on the title plan has been removed from this title' means nothing until you find the green on the plan, and an entry that mentions a numbered or coloured strip may be the only clue that part of the field is treated differently from the rest. The proprietorship register can also show what the owners paid, or an indication of the land's value on a stated date, which is often the first figure a family finds when it starts working out a late parent's affairs.

No. In almost every case it shows a general boundary, a line that places the land correctly on the Ordnance Survey map without fixing exactly where your ownership stops. The rule is written into section 60 of the Land Registration Act 2002, which provides that the boundary of a registered estate as shown for the purposes of the register is a general boundary unless shown as determined, and that a general boundary does not determine the exact line of the boundary.

HM Land Registry's practice guide on boundaries draws a distinction that helps here. The legal boundary is the invisible line dividing your land from your neighbour's. The physical boundary is the hedge, fence, wall or ditch you can see. The red edging usually follows the physical feature, but it cannot show which side of a hedge or which bank of a ditch the legal line runs along. The same guide notes that there is no limit to the quantity of land that can fall within the general boundaries rule, and that the exact position of a disputed boundary can be decided only by a court or by the land registration division of the First-tier Tribunal.

The Legal Presumptions That Fill the Gap

Where the deeds are silent, the law presumes certain things about common boundary features. HM Land Registry's practice guide on boundaries sets them out, and each can be displaced by evidence, usually the wording or plan of an older conveyance.

The first is a boundary agreement: you and your neighbour agree in writing where the line runs, and the agreement can be noted on the register. The second is a determined boundary: an application to HM Land Registry, on form DB, to record the exact line on both titles. The Registry's guide to boundary agreements and determined boundaries is clear that the two are not the same: a noted agreement does not make the boundary determined, and the Registry does not guarantee that the legal line is where an agreement places it.

1. Commission a measured plan. A surveyor prepares a plan showing the boundary to be determined, with measurements accurate to plus or minus 10 millimetres, taken horizontally rather than along a slope.
2. Tie it to features that will last. Measurements must run from at least two defined points on permanent features, meaning features that can reasonably be expected to last at least ten years, such as a building corner rather than a fence post.
3. Sign it, with the neighbour if possible. The applicant signs the plan, and so does the neighbour where the agreement panel on form DB is completed.
4. Apply with the fee. HM Land Registry's fee for a determination of a boundary is £90 an application, by post or online, on its schedule in force since 9 December 2024.
5. Notice to the neighbour. Unless the evidence includes a written agreement with the neighbour or a court order, the Registry gives the adjoining owner notice of the application.
6. Objection or entry. If the neighbour objects and the objection is not groundless, the matter is referred to the First-tier Tribunal unless the two sides agree. Otherwise the exact line is recorded, and each title plan shows its general position.

In practice, the Registry's guide says a boundary agreement always requires the neighbour's agreement and a determined boundary almost always does too. For most owners neither route is needed. A determined boundary earns its cost where a metre or two decides something real: whether a sight line for a new junction falls on your land, whether a pond or an outfall is yours to use, or where a long-running disagreement needs settling once.

Noting a boundary agreement on the register is an application to alter the register, which the same fee schedule prices at £20 online or £40 by post.

You find out who owns a field next to yours the same way you check your own: from HM Land Registry, which will sell a copy of any registered title to anyone, owner or not. The online service finds titles by address, and for a field without a recognised postal description the index map search is the route in.

• Search the register first. A field may be registered under the address of the farmhouse it belongs to, so try the farm name, the lane and the nearest house.
• If nothing comes up, use the index map. HM Land Registry's practice guide says any person may apply for an official search of the index map on form SIM. Where the land has no recognised postal description, the plan sent with it must be drawn to scale, show the precise extent of the land by colouring or edging, give the scale and orientation, and show where the land sits in relation to nearby roads and other features. The minimum fee is £8.
• Read the result carefully. The certificate says whether the land is registered and gives the title numbers, so you can then order each register and plan. It also shows a pending application for first registration, and whether a caution against first registration has been lodged by someone claiming an interest in unregistered land.
• Professional users have MapSearch. HM Land Registry's practice guide on index map searches describes MapSearch as a free, self-serve digital map, available to business e-services customers who have portal access, which is why a solicitor or land agent can often show you title extents on screen in minutes. The same guide notes that MapSearch carries no indemnity, so it is a quick look, while the form SIM certificate is the formal result.

If the search shows that the field next door is unregistered, the Registry holds no owner's name for it. The next steps are local: the older deeds of adjoining land sometimes name the owner of the neighbouring parcel at the time, and long-standing neighbours or old planning applications may show who farms or owns it.

Knowing who owns the next field matters more than idle curiosity when two holdings could sensibly come forward together. Our guide to when your neighbour owns the next field explains how councils view joined-up sites and how separate owners can each keep their own agreement.

A field that has passed quietly down a family without being sold can still be unregistered. If the index map search shows no title over land you believe you own, the land is either unregistered or registered under a title you have not found yet, and the deeds are the next step.

You can put unregistered land on the register at any time, without waiting for a sale. This is called voluntary first registration, and HM Land Registry encourages it with a lower fixed fee on its Scale 1 fees, roughly a quarter to a third below the full fee depending on the value of the land. The fee is worked out on the land's full current open market value, unless the application follows an open market sale within the last year, in which case the price is used.

Registration does more than tidy the paperwork. Once a title exists, you have a plan that anyone can read, a register that proves ownership, and a single document a buyer's solicitor can check in an afternoon rather than a box of conveyances that take weeks. Where the deeds are lost or incomplete, the Registry may grant a weaker class of title, and how families handle that, with the application itself, is covered in our guide to whether you need a solicitor to sell land.

"The Mines and Minerals Are Excepted"

This entry in the property register means the minerals under the land are not part of your title. HM Land Registry's practice guide on mines and minerals explains that excepting them in a transfer has the effect of severing the mines and minerals from the surface land, so someone else, often a former estate or the lord of a manor, may own them. Even where no exception appears, some minerals were never the landowner's: most interests in coal are vested in the Coal Authority, mines of gold and silver belong to the Crown, and petroleum in its natural state is vested in the Crown too. The same guide adds that minerals are presumed to be included in a surface title but that no indemnity is payable for them unless the register carries a specific note.

For most fields an exception of minerals changes nothing in everyday farming. It is one of the entries the solicitors read with care on any sale, and it is far easier to explain at the start than to discover halfway through.

Restrictions

A restriction sits in the proprietorship register and stops HM Land Registry registering certain dealings unless a condition is met. HM Land Registry's guide to reading a register calls the restriction entered when the owners are trustees the most common one; it often appears where two or more members of a family are registered together, and what it requires on a sale is explained in the guide on neighbouring fields mentioned above. Other restrictions require the written consent of a named person or company before a transfer can be registered, so the register itself tells you who else has to be involved.

Notices

A notice records the burden of an interest that affects the land, such as a lease or an option, and is almost always entered in the charges register. HM Land Registry's practice guide on notices and restrictions explains that an agreed notice needs the owner's consent or proof of the interest, while a unilateral notice may be entered without the owner's consent, and that entering a notice does not confirm the interest is valid; it protects its priority if it is. Any entry you do not recognise is worth raising with your solicitor before anything else is signed.

Two things that matter on almost every field are not on your title at all. The first is a gap: a thin strip between your title and the next one, or between your gateway and the road, that belongs to someone else or to nobody on the register, and that can decide whether a site has access, as our guide to access and ransom strips explains.

The second is a public right of way. The register records private rights, such as a neighbour's right to drive along your track granted in an old deed. Public footpaths, bridleways and byways are recorded on a different document, the definitive map and statement, which government guidance for landowners describes as a legal record of public rights of way in four categories: footpaths, bridleways, restricted byways and byways open to all traffic. It is normally held by the local authority, such as the county council, unitary authority or national park authority. Check whether a path crosses your land, because the same guidance reminds owners that obstructing a public right of way is a criminal offence, and a path through a field shapes any layout drawn on it.

• Gaps and slivers: look for white space between the red edging of your title plans and the road, the lane or the next title.
• Public paths: check the council's definitive map, which is the legal record, rather than relying on a walking map.
• Private rights: read the property register for rights you enjoy, and the charges register for rights others have over you.

Usually nothing needs doing, because a general boundary is expected to differ a little from the hedge. Where the difference is real, for example a field you have farmed for decades drawn into the neighbour's title, or a strip left out of yours, the register can be changed. HM Land Registry's practice guide on alteration explains the two ideas involved.

• Alteration is any change to the register. Under Schedule 4 to the Land Registration Act 2002 it may be made to correct a mistake, to bring the register up to date, to give effect to a right excepted from the effect of registration, or to remove a superfluous entry. A mistake includes anything mistakenly left out or mistakenly put in.
• Rectification is an alteration that both corrects a mistake and prejudicially affects the title of a registered owner. Only rectification can lead to the statutory indemnity, the compensation scheme for loss caused by a mistake in the register.
• Protection for the owner in possession. The register cannot be rectified against an owner who is in possession of the land without their consent, unless they caused or substantially contributed to the mistake by fraud or lack of proper care, or it would be unjust not to make the change.

When a possible error is reported, the guide says HM Land Registry may look at historic editions of the Ordnance Survey map and, with the owner's consent, send a surveyor to inspect the land. Old maps can show how a line ended up where it is, for example where a hedge has been grubbed out since the land was first mapped, or where part of a field was sold off and the new line never matched the hedge.

Because every agreement over land is built on a plan, and the plan can only include what you can prove you own. An option identifies the land it covers on a plan attached to it, the price is agreed for that land, and every registered owner of every title has to sign. Finding out at the start that the field is in three titles, one still in a late parent's name, or that the gateway strip belongs to someone else, means it can be dealt with calmly in the first weeks rather than discovered late.

It also makes the first answer better. Our free desktop review starts from public information, including the HM Land Registry title plan and Ordnance Survey mapping, and the review is quicker and more precise when you can tell us the title numbers and what you know of the ground. We do not contact the council, your neighbours or anyone else about your land without your agreement.

If an agreement follows, the price is agreed at the start and set above what the land is worth today in its current use, and we pay for and run all the planning. We work with whichever solicitor and land agent you appoint, and we contribute to their fees, so it costs you nothing to get it done properly. Our solicitors register the option on your title, usually by a notice of the kind described above. If you would like a straight answer about your own land, a free desktop review is the simplest place to start.

• I have searched the index of proprietors' names for every name the land may be held in, including a late parent's where I am a personal representative.
• I have the register and title plan for every title, and I know which fields each one covers.
• I know the class of title for each, and who the registered owners are.
• I have read all three parts of each register and found any blue, pink or green on the plans that the entries refer to.
• I have noted any mines and minerals exception, restriction, notice, covenant or right of way.
• I have walked the boundaries with the plans and marked any hedge, ditch or verge that strays from the red line.
• I have checked for gaps between my titles and the road, and between my titles and each other.
• I have checked the council's definitive map for public paths across the land.
• For any land with no title, I have found the deeds or know who holds them.