Quickly/accurately find property ownership information.
Quickly/accurately find property ownership information.
Author
Discussion

jonsp

Original Poster:

1,250 posts

172 months

Tuesday 8th March 2022
quotequote all
Toying with an idea that may or may not have legs. A few scenarios.

1/ You want to know all the property owned by company x. Stick in their company number and you get a list of everything they own.

2/ You want all the property owned by company/organisation x and their subsidiary undertakings. Stick in Tesco and you get all the properties they + their subsidiaries own.

3/ You want to know who (company/organisation not person) owns the property at x address

4/ You want to know everyone who owns property in x town/street/postcode/area etc

Having got the above data you can sort/filter, import into your own database, plot the properties on a map etc.

Is there anything available that can do this quickly/accurately via website/iPhone app/API? I think not but obviously may have missed it.

Assuming no would such a service be useful?

Insurancejon

4,080 posts

262 months

Thursday 10th March 2022
quotequote all
1&2 very hard to do as the ownership property in corporations is less than transparent a lot

3&4 just do map or address searches on the land registry 6 quid a time iirc

soxboy

7,052 posts

235 months

Thursday 10th March 2022
quotequote all
I work in property so often look up title details of a building, £3 from land registry for title register copy plus another £3 for a print of the title plan.

We've started using some software which gives you just the name of the owner from the map search. Moving forwards that's probably most that we need.

No requirement for 1&2, who do you think would benefit from it?

LooneyTunes

8,320 posts

174 months

Friday 11th March 2022
quotequote all
Regarding the first point, that’d be really hard to do in a way that made it useful for the simple reason that a company will often place assets in different parts of a group to the operating company.

As a result, to achieve what I think you want to do, you’d need the ability to visualise the corporate structure and then see what property is owned across the group.

jonsp

Original Poster:

1,250 posts

172 months

Friday 11th March 2022
quotequote all
soxboy said:
We've started using some software which gives you just the name of the owner from the map search. Moving forwards that's probably most that we need.
Appreciate the response. That's part of what I'd be looking to offer. Compiling the data at the moment so the idea is to work out how to present the data to the user in the most effective way.

You mentioned searching from a map - do you find it easier to start with a map pinpoint a location and show ownership in that area rather than typing in an address/street/postcode etc? Either/both ways is doable just a case of which is preferable.

Would you be willing to share the product you're using and how that's working out for you? Understand if not of course.

jonsp

Original Poster:

1,250 posts

172 months

Friday 11th March 2022
quotequote all
LooneyTunes said:
Regarding the first point, that’d be really hard to do in a way that made it useful for the simple reason that a company will often place assets in different parts of a group to the operating company.

As a result, to achieve what I think you want to do, you’d need the ability to visualise the corporate structure and then see what property is owned across the group.
Exactly right. As a random example take say Persimmon, they have a lot of companies that own land - roughly one company for each area they operate in. Obviously they don't own all their land through 1 company so as you say there's an element of research to tie together all their various companies. Same for the supermarkets etc.

My question was whether doing that would have value and what potential use cases would be. I'm thinking maybe investors looking to value a company, companies researching their competitors, business journalists etc. If there's a need it's doable - if there's no need then obviously it's a moot point.

LooneyTunes

8,320 posts

174 months

Friday 11th March 2022
quotequote all
jonsp said:
My question was whether doing that would have value and what potential use cases would be. I'm thinking maybe investors looking to value a company, companies researching their competitors, business journalists etc. If there's a need it's doable - if there's no need then obviously it's a moot point.
There may be some use but for initial valuation purposes, unless the property is a major component or of specific interest, would people not use the existing tools that exist for gathering/analysing company accounts?

The other aspect to consider, bearing in mind accounting policies vary between firms, is how/whether you present historic valuations or attempt to present current values etc.

22s

6,456 posts

232 months

Friday 11th March 2022
quotequote all
I haven't used it in a while, but I think Nimbus Maps does everything you are suggesting: https://www.nimbusmaps.co.uk/

soxboy

7,052 posts

235 months

Friday 11th March 2022
quotequote all
22s said:
I haven't used it in a while, but I think Nimbus Maps does everything you are suggesting: https://www.nimbusmaps.co.uk/
Yes that's the one we're using, takes care of 3 & 4 of the OPs ideas.

jonsp

Original Poster:

1,250 posts

172 months

Friday 11th March 2022
quotequote all
Thanks both. Checking out nimbus now.

In terms of my 3/4 above thinking a subset of Nimbus (mainly ownership information) at a significantly lower price point.

soxboy

7,052 posts

235 months

Friday 11th March 2022
quotequote all
jonsp said:
Thanks both. Checking out nimbus now.

In terms of my 3/4 above thinking a subset of Nimbus (mainly ownership information) at a significantly lower price point.
Don't forget Nimbus also provides (amongst other things):
Rateable value
Flooding risk
Planning history
Nearby sales and lettings

So, if you are solely providing ownership details I can get that from Land Registry for £3. I probably do on average no more than say 4-5 searches a month, plus a few title plans. So I reckon £20 per month.

surveyor

18,398 posts

200 months

Friday 11th March 2022
quotequote all
soxboy said:
I work in property so often look up title details of a building, £3 from land registry for title register copy plus another £3 for a print of the title plan.

We've started using some software which gives you just the name of the owner from the map search. Moving forwards that's probably most that we need.

No requirement for 1&2, who do you think would benefit from it?
I like the idea of 1& 2 and can see a use case.

It's a bit specialist though.