Is This Property Freehold or Leasehold?

Enter a postcode and see the tenure HM Land Registry recorded on the most recent sales there since 1995 — freehold or leasehold, the latest sale for each address — with any published property-tribunal decisions at the postcode. That shows the street's pattern on screen. Only the title register (£7) confirms the tenure of one home, so the result says so rather than guessing.

No signup. Reads the tenure HM Land Registry recorded on the most recent sales at the postcode (England and Wales) and published property-tribunal decisions at the postcode (England). The title register remains the definitive source.

This check runs on screen, no signup. The full property report is £9.99 Lite / £24.99 Complete — one report, one price, no subscription.

How this checker works

Every sale registered in England and Wales since 1995 is published by HM Land Registry as open data, and each record carries the tenure the sale was registered under: freehold or leasehold. The checker reads the most recent sales recorded at the postcode you enter, shows the latest sale for each address it finds (up to twelve) with the tenure recorded on it, and summarises the pattern for the street. Where the postcode is in England it also searches the published decisions of the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), the body that hears leasehold disputes about service charges, lease extensions and management, and tells you how many name the postcode.

That is a real answer, not a guess, and it is usually enough to know what kind of purchase you are looking at before you book a viewing. It is not the current title. Tenure is recorded at the moment of a sale; a lease can be bought out, a freehold can be split, and a home that has not changed hands since 1995 will not appear at all. The title register from HM Land Registry costs £7 per document and is the only source that confirms the tenure of one home today.

Freehold or leasehold: what the difference means for your offer

Freehold means you buy the building and the land it stands on, with no time limit and no landlord. Most houses in England and Wales are sold freehold. Leasehold means you buy the right to occupy the property for the years left on a lease; a freeholder owns the land, and you normally pay ground rent and a service charge. Almost every flat is leasehold, and a minority of houses are too.

Leasehold is not a reason to walk away, but it changes what you must find out before you offer. Three figures decide value and mortgageability and none of them is in any public dataset: the years left on the lease (below about 80 years an extension becomes expensive and some lenders refuse), the ground rent and how it rises, and the service charge for the last three years plus any planned major works. Those live in the lease and the management pack, which the seller must provide. Read our guide to leasehold vs freehold for the full comparison, and how to check ground rent.

What the postcode check cannot tell you

  • Lease length, ground rent and service charge. Not published anywhere. The title register shows the lease date and term; the lease and the seller's management pack show the money.
  • Share of freehold or commonhold. A share-of-freehold flat is recorded as a leasehold sale; commonhold is recorded as freehold. The lease and the company papers tell you which arrangement is on offer.
  • A home that has not sold since 1995, or whose last sale was not registered with a tenure.
  • A change since the last sale. If the owner has since bought the freehold, the sale record still says leasehold.

Where the check finds no sale with a recorded tenure, it says so. A blank is never read as freehold.

How to confirm the tenure of one address

  1. Go to the GOV.UK land and property information service and search the address. For a flat, pick the entry that names the flat, not the whole building; a block usually has one freehold title and one leasehold title per flat.
  2. Buy the title register (£7). Its heading reads Freehold or Leasehold. For a lease, the property register section gives the date of the lease, the term in years and the parties, from which you can work out the years remaining. See how to find a title number and what the title documents contain.
  3. If it is leasehold, ask the agent to confirm the tenure in writing and request the lease pack before you offer, not after. Find out who owns the freehold and whether there is a management company.
  4. Use the lease extension calculator once you know the years remaining, and the service charge dispute check for the building's tribunal history.

Scotland and Wales

Wales is covered by the same HM Land Registry sale records, so the checker works for Welsh postcodes; Welsh leasehold disputes are heard by the Residential Property Tribunal Wales rather than the English tribunal, so the dispute count is not available there. Scotland has no leasehold in the English sense: residential property is held outright, long leases were largely converted by the Long Leases (Scotland) Act 2012, and the title sheet is searched on ScotLIS at Registers of Scotland. For a Scottish postcode the checker explains that and points you to the right register.

What the Complete report adds

The Complete report (£24.99, one-off) prints a Tenure & leasehold section for the exact address: the tenure recorded on the last sale and the sale it was matched to, the tenure pattern of every recorded sale on the street, every published tribunal decision at the postcode with its case reference and link, the occupancy declared on the energy certificate, and the lease-pack checklist of what to demand from the seller. It sits alongside the full sale history for the street, the flood and ground screen, the EPC, planning labels and the area picture, and the report names every check it could not run. It is not a title register and never shows lease length or ground rent; it tells you what to ask for and where it lives. Read the illustrative sample first, or start with the pre-offer check to see where tenure fits among the other checks.

Frequently asked questions

The definitive check is the title register from HM Land Registry, £7 per document on GOV.UK: its heading says Freehold or Leasehold and, for a lease, gives the lease date and term. Before paying, the checker above shows the tenure recorded on the most recent sales at the postcode since 1995, which usually settles the pattern for the street. A flat is almost always leasehold; a house is usually freehold, but leasehold houses exist, so confirm the exact address.
Yes, with limits. HM Land Registry's open Price Paid Data records the tenure on every registered sale in England and Wales since 1995, and that is what this checker reads at no charge. It cannot show a home that has not sold since 1995, and it reads the tenure at the time of the sale, which can change if a lease is later bought out. The £7 title register is the current, definitive answer.
No. Lease length, ground rent and service charge are not in any public dataset, so no checker can read them. The lease date and term are on the title register (£7, HM Land Registry) and in the lease itself, which the seller must supply; use the lease extension calculator here to see what a short lease is likely to cost to extend once you know the years remaining.
Share of freehold means you hold a long lease on your flat and a share of the company that owns the freehold of the building, so there is no outside landlord. Commonhold is a separate form of ownership for flats with no lease at all; it is rare. In sale records both appear as leasehold (share of freehold) or freehold (commonhold), so read the lease and the company papers to see which you are being offered.
Wales, yes: HM Land Registry's sale records cover England and Wales, though the tribunal decisions it checks are England-only (Welsh leasehold disputes go to the Residential Property Tribunal Wales). Scotland, no: leasehold in the English sense does not exist there, residential property is held outright, and the title sheet is on ScotLIS at Registers of Scotland.
The Complete report (£24.99, one-off) prints a Tenure & leasehold section for the address: the tenure recorded on the last sale, the tenure pattern of every recorded sale on the street, every published property-tribunal decision at the postcode with its case reference, and a lease-pack checklist of what to demand from the seller. It is not a title register and does not show lease length or ground rent; it tells you where those are and what to ask.

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