Property Sale Price

Property Sale Price

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Overview

Historically, the sale price of a property was never available to the public at large from information held by the Land Registry. However, from April 2000 the law changed and from then onwards the sale price (or purchase price) is shown.

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Land Registration Rules 2003

Section 8(2) of the Land Registration Rules 2003 changed the law with regard to the sale price, or, rather, the purchase price. Although sale price and purchase price are the same thing, depending on whether you are the vendor or purchaser, in actuality the above Rules provide that the purchase price should be shown in the Land Registry’s Title Register.

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Title Register

The section of the Title Register that contains the ownership details is Section B. Section B is updated each time there is a change in ownership, so the new purchaser’s Title Register will not only show his/her name and address, but also the purchase price and date of purchase.

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Sample Section B of a Title Register

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Date of Registration and Date of Purchase

The date of registration of the purchase is the first date in brackets in the sample above; the purchase was actually completed on 10 October 2003, which is the actual date of purchase.

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Exceptions

Exceptions to the rule about displaying the purchase price are quite rare. The Land Registry will only allow an exception where to show the purchase price could provide misleading information, e.g. where a group of properties were purchased at the same time and all registered in the one Register.

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Market Value

The purchase price does not necessarily equate to the market value, e.g. sales by a mortgagee in possession are often sold for less than the market price, as are sales by auction. The market price is not displayed, only the purchase price.