Who owns Britain? Map displays unregistered land in England and Wales

[editor]

Interesting map here:

Around 15% of the freehold land in England & Wales is unregistered. What this means is that if you go to the Land Registry and ask them ‘Who owns this piece of land?’, they simply can’t tell you, for a huge chunk of the country.

This situation is both odd and harmful for reasons that I’ll go into shortly. Part of the reason that such a strange situation has been allowed to go on is that you simply can’t see how much ‘mystery land’ there is out there. There has never been a map that highlights how much we don’t know.

I thought it was time this was rectified. So I’m pleased to announce that I’ve built the first ‘missing land’ map, ever, for England & Wales. Please take a look and then return here to see what this all means.

What does this map show?

The map shows the 5.2 million acres of England & Wales that doesn’t have a registered owner. Search the map to see the unregistered land near you – it varies from slivers of fields and gardens there, to huge rural estates.

To be clear, all this land is owned by someone – usually, the person or institution involved will hold paper deeds to prove their ownership. The ownership details just haven’t been registered with the government, which means that you can’t check the ownership online by paying £3 in the usual way.

Land Registry is working hard to get landowners to register their land, and has committed to registering 100% of England & Wales by 2030. But as now, around 15% remains unregistered.

So who owns all this unregistered land? By definition, we don’t know. But we do know that it hasn’t changed hands for years, and most of it is rural. So it is probably owned by old families or institutions: as Land Registry itself says: “Much of the land owned by the Crown, the aristocracy, and the Church has not been registered, because it has never been sold”.

In other words, we do know one thing: this land has been owned by the same people for many years.

The holes in the map: England’s unregistered land

 

[cupid_stunt]

That's interesting, the biggest areas around here that aren't registered are -

Kingston Gorse, a private village/estate with fuck off big houses worth millions.

Worthing Golf Club, which has fuck off big houses worth millions along the private approach road to the club house & course.

I think I am going to put in a claim on Monday.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

Where we live, it looks like the village playing field is not registered.

 

[moochedit]

couldn't they just set a deadline to register and anyone who doesn't register in time loses ownership and it becomes owned by the local council for that area?

 

[SpookyFrank]

couldn't they just set a deadline to register and anyone who doesn't register in time loses ownership and it becomes owned by the local council for that area?

Yes the government does love to come down hard on the landed gentry.

 

[Pickman's model]

couldn't they just set a deadline to register and anyone who doesn't register in time loses ownership and it becomes owned by the local council for that area?

Don't think parliament would go for that

 

[cupid_stunt]

Where we live, it looks like the village playing field is not registered.

I was once the Chairman of an action group that stopped the council building a multi storey car-park on a playing field, it wasn't on the Land Registry, so the council assumed they owned it, but oddly it had been registered as a charity with the Charity Commission, which fucked their plans.

 

[Pickman's model]

Yes the government does love to come down hard on the landed gentry.

Never mind that, have a look at the west end of westminster bridge

 

[moochedit]

Yes the government does love to come down hard on the landed gentry.

Don't think parliament would go for that

well yeah not this goverment obviously

 

[Baronage-Phase]

Maybe this is why brexit is popular with the aristocracy.
Once it happens they wont have to register their lands.

 

[John Orbson]

"this land has been owned by the same people for many years" - That is interesting. So, if they need to sell it, they will register it. I guess they don't care about registration technicalities. Certainly people have assets whether they are registered or not. People could even have assets that they forgot they had.

 

[moochedit]

Maybe this is why brexit is popular with the aristocracy.
Once it happens they wont have to register their lands.

What has brexit got to do with land registration?

 

[planetgeli]

Sorry for thick questions but,

The red bits are the registered bits yes? Or are they the unregistered bits?

Why is the website called who owns England?

I heard recently less than 500 people own the majority of Scotland. That’s outrageous.

 

[Pickman's model]

well yeah not this goverment obviously

Note the Palace of Westminster is unregistered

 

[Baronage-Phase]

What has brexit got to do with land registration?

Well...think about that for a minute. At the moment
Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population.
Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population

Mostly aristocrats whose land is not registeres vecause it has not changed hands since 1998.
So..if the UK were not to remain in the EU it would be easy enough for that 1% to maintain this position. However, remaining in the EU leaves that 1% open to possible changes in land reg laws in the future.
Who knows...but that 1% want to remain in control of the majority of land in the UK and I've no doubt they would use political means to do so.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Sorry for thick questions but,

The red bits are the registered bits yes?

The red bits are not registered.

 

[newbie]

Where we live, it looks like the village playing field is not registered.

common land perhaps?

e2a Tooting Common is red on the map

 

[Poot]

In my experience locally most unregistered land is owned by those who have simply passed it from one generation to another - usually farmers. Registering (or not) doesn't really alter anything - you still own the land and you almost certainly have a deed which confirms that. Until about 30 years ago nobody had any clue who owned what.

The question, usually, is why do you need to know?

Incidentally for areas such as commons (Tooting Common for example) there is a massive amount of bureaucracy protecting it and if you apply to your local authority they will be able to supply a list of those with an interest, including graziers. Anything that you do on a common beyond walking etc usually requires permission from the Planning Inspectorate. Who are a separate body. And you have to notify about twenty other parties too, including anyone with ecological or archaeological interests, the general public (you must advertise) and various other bodies. And it takes about 3 or 4 months to get permission. I speak from experience.

 

[kebabking]

Well...think about that for a minute. At the moment
Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population.
Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population

Mostly aristocrats whose land is not registeres vecause it has not changed hands since 1998.
So..if the UK were not to remain in the EU it would be easy enough for that 1% to maintain this position. However, remaining in the EU leaves that 1% open to possible changes in land reg laws in the future.
Who knows...but that 1% want to remain in control of the majority of land in the UK and I've no doubt they would use political means to do so.

What has Land Ownership Registration, and indeed Land Ownership, got to do with the EU?

 

[smmudge]

Whole of kew gardens. The thames, can you really own a river? Seems to be a lot of roads though.

 

[Poot]

Whole of kew gardens. The thames, can you really own a river? Seems to be a lot of roads though.

You can own a river or a section of river or you can own riparian or sporting rights. You can also have a profit a prendre too and you'd be wise to register these. Highways England owns roads which are public, and often also verges. These are not registered. Some roads are private and may or may not be registered. You can register what's known as a caution over a road, and this means that no one can suddenly register it and block your access.

You can also own a ransom strip (for various nefarious reasons) and these are usually registered.

Some of the land which is unregistered has a mines and minerals title or similar over it, which makes it look registered, but it isn't.

It's not as simple as people seem to think it is. Ownership and interest is the key for most things, not registration.

 

[Poot]

I should have said, there are Main Rivers and Ordinary Watercourses - I think the EA and local authority usually have responsibility for main rivers but it is possible to own an ordinary watercourse or at least a section of it - depending on what it is. Not the Thames, obviously. That's owned by the Queen (well, the Crown).

 

[SpookyFrank]

common land perhaps?

Almost nothing is 'common land' in this day and age. Closest you'll get is land that was transferred to the local authority with a covenant on it which states it can't be sold or used for commercial purposes. Even then the council may ignore the covenant, as ours is currently doing with a local community centre they want to sell off to be demolished and replaced by (guess what) student flats.

 

[Poot]

Almost nothing is 'common land' in this day and age. Closest you'll get is land that was transferred to the local authority with a covenant on it which states it can't be sold or used for commercial purposes. Even then the council may ignore the covenant, as ours is currently doing with a local community centre they want to sell off to be demolished and replaced by (guess what) student flats.

Agh! No! Common land is a classification. It's really, really protected (though not as much as village greens, which is another classification). It sounds as though the land you're talking about isn't a common. If I'm wrong and it is a common, speak to Natural England and I promise they will be VERY interested.

It's shit what they're doing though. Similar here. But classifications really matter in these cases.

 

[Poot]

This is an excellent tool if you want to know about schemes and designations:

Magic Map Application

 

[Judelo]

Railways (round here atleast) are unregistered - self-explanetary though.

Re rivers - my Grandma (who's been dead over a quarter of a century, so we're talking atleast that long ago) had a roughly 5 metre wide river running past her back garden, with a couple metre wide grass bank (publicly accessible but a dead end) in between.

She said her property stretched to half way across the river bed, but the water board owned the water that flowed over it.

Presumably she would have been within her rights to wall off her bit to make it flow around had she wished..

Or claim a rebate on her water bill..

 

[Poot]

Railways (round here atleast) are unregistered - self-explanetary though.

Re rivers - my Grandma (who's been dead over a quarter of a century, so we're talking atleast that long ago) had a roughly 5 metre wide river running past her back garden, with a couple metre wide grass bank (publicly accessible but a dead end) in between.

She said her property stretched to half way across the river bed, but the water board owned the water that flowed over it.

Presumably she would have been within her rights to wall off her bit to make it flow around had she wished..

Or claim a rebate on her water bill..

Nope. Because if she did that it would probably erode the other bank.

Sounds as though she had the river bed, which sometimes happens, but not the riparian rights. We don't have water boards anymore, they have been privatised, but they also don't usually own water courses unless they are piped. They do sometimes, but it's rare.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Very little unregistered round here - mainly railway land, roads and some chunks of Salford Quays.

 

[Judelo]

Nope. Because if she did that it would probably erode the other bank.

Sounds as though she had the river bed, which sometimes happens, but not the riparian rights. We don't have water boards anymore, they have been privatised, but they also don't usually own water courses unless they are piped. They do sometimes, but it's rare.

Yeah water board or company.. Not sure what the score was when she said this..

Just looked up riparian rights, interesting.

All I know is we used to play in it (it was only paddle depth..), and there was a metre or so square man-hole cover or whatever you wanna call it, totally flat lid bolted down and a few inches above the water level, which was quite handy. Never did know what it was actually for.. Not sure either how it tallied exactly with the side of her property - may have been right on it or over.

Oh aye and there's about four or five small to medium sized reservoirs upstream.

 

[yield]

LRB · Ian Jack · Why did we not know?: Who is hoarding the land?

Christophers estimates that since 1979 the state has sold about two million hectares – about a tenth of Britain’s landmass – which at today’s prices would be worth £400 billion, ten times the amount realised by its most valuable component, the sale of social housing. His estimate includes land qua land such as forests, artillery ranges and municipally owned farms; and land as an inherent element in other privatisations such as electricity generation and social housing. (On average – that is, for all kinds of housing – land now accounts for 70 per cent of a house’s sale price. In the 1930s it was 2 per cent.) When Thatcher entered Downing Street in May 1979, more land was owned by the state than ever before: 20 per cent of Britain’s total area. Today the figure is 10.5 per cent. The disposals include council houses, forests, farms, moors, royal dockyards, military airfields, railway arches, railway sidings, museums, theatres, playgrounds, parks, town halls, bowling greens, allotments, children’s centres, leisure centres, school playing fields. There has been in Christophers’s words ‘a colossal devaluation of the public estate’, and not one that came about by accident. This was a project determined and driven by the Treasury and the Cabinet Office, a project that in the forty years since its inception has never been seriously studied, let alone contested or protested, and shows no sign of letting up. In his introduction, Christophers suggests that the book’s British readers keep a puzzle at the back of their minds as they follow his disclosures: why did I not know about this before?

Recent article on a similar theme