West Riding Registry of Deeds

Using the West Riding Registry of Deeds

Introducing the West Riding Registry of Deeds

• What is the Registry of Deeds?
• Was every property registered?
• What is a registered Deed?
• Who registered the Deeds?
• How can I find out if property or land is registered at the current Land Registry?

Frequently asked questions about the West Riding Registry of Deeds

• How can I find out who is the current owner of a piece of land/house?
• Can the Registry of Deeds help resolve a boundary dispute with my neighbour?
• Can you carry out a Registry search for me?
• How do I know if the title deed I require was registered at Wakefield?
• How is the Registry of Deeds organised?
• What area is covered by the West Riding of Yorkshire?
• Do the Registry records include a plan of the property?
• What do the terms ‘freehold’, ‘leasehold’ and ‘copyhold’ mean?
• Do you keep a Register of Land Charges?
• Does the Registry of Deeds include anything other than property title deeds?
• How can I trace the history of my house?
• Definitions of words and phrases found in deeds

 

Introducing the West Riding Registry of Deeds

What is the Registry of Deeds?
Established by Act of Parliament in September 1704, the Registry is one of the oldest in the country and one of only five in England. It was created to allow land holders to register publicly deeds relating to their property. The
Registry contains summaries of properties located in the West Riding. It closed for registrations in September 1970.

Was every property registered?
It was customary to register deeds but not compulsory. Between 1704 and 1914 some 1.5 million deeds were registered. The growth of owner occupation led to an increased rate of registration, adding several million more deeds between 1910 and 1970. Not all types of deeds were registered e.g. leases shorter than twenty-one years and copyhold deeds.

What is a registered Deed?
The deeds held are not originals but summaries or ‘memorials’. They give the date of the deed, the names and addresses of the parties (buyers/sellers) and a brief description of the property. Other details sometimes included are land boundaries and any restrictive covenants, plans or rights of access. Later memorials often include plans.

Who registered the Deeds?
Owners of properties or companies registered deeds and some used this to act as security for loans. Large areas of land in the West Riding were copyhold i.e. subject to the jurisdiction of the lords of the manor and were
not registered in the Registry of Deeds.

How can I find out if property or land is registered at the current Land Registry?
It is now compulsory to register land at the national Land Registry.
If you know the address of a property you can check their website at:
www.landregisteronline.gov.uk and download details of title deeds and current plans for a fee.
Be aware that for most areas covered by the West Riding Registry of Deeds there is a gap between the closure of the Registry in 1970 and compulsory land registration. Registration was compulsory by 1974 in most areas, but
land in some areas of North Yorkshire did not have to be registered until as late as 1988.

Frequently asked questions about the West Riding Registry of Deeds

How can I find out who is the current owner of a piece of land or a house?
Contact HM Land Registry in the first instance. Registration of title at the Land Registry has been compulsory for most areas of West Yorkshire since 1974. The Land Register is now available online at: http://www.landregisteronline.gov.uk/ If the land is still unregistered at the Land Registry, you may be referred back to West Yorkshire Archive Service to use the West Riding Registry of Deeds. It is organised along different lines to the modern HM Land Registry system and closed as a working Registry in 1970. So although a search of the old Registry may be helpful in your research, it cannot tell you for certain who is the current owner of a particular property.

Can the Registry of Deeds help resolve a boundary dispute with my neighbour?
Possibly, but you are advised to obtain relevant documentation from HM Land Registry first of all and to consult your solicitor if the matter is serious.
If you require further historical documentation, you may need to use the West Riding Registry of Deeds. However, you should note the staff are not able to give legal advice.

Can you carry out a Registry search for me?
Yes . If you cannot visit our Wakefield office in person, or simply have insufficient spare time to conduct research yourself, our experienced staff can search the deeds indexes on your behalf.

Searching the deeds and ordering copies for legal purposes

Searching the deeds and ordering copies for family and local history purposes

How do I know if the title deed I require was registered at Wakefield?
It was never compulsory to register at the West Riding Registry of Deeds, but increasingly it became customary to do so. If you can answer ‘yes’ to the following questions, therefore, there is a fair chance that the deed you require will have been registered at Wakefield:
1. Is the deed dated between September 1704 and September 1970?
2. Does the deed relate to land within the county of the West Riding of Yorkshire?
3. Was the tenure in freehold or leasehold of more than 21 years?
Original deeds were stamped ‘Registered at Wakefield’ followed by a volume reference, once the registration had taken place, usually within about six months of the date of the original deed.

How is the Registry of Deeds organised?
The Registry memorials are kept in large bound volumes. Three methods of referencing these volumes were used one after another:

1. The first volumes use the letters of the alphabet A-Z (excluding J and V to prevent confusion with I and U) in various single (A, B, C etc.) and double (AA, AB etc.) letter combinations.
2. The next set of volumes are referred to by a unique number, beginning with 601.
3. From the year 1885 onwards, a new sequence of sub-numbered volumes was begun each year (1885 volume 1, 1885 volume 2, 1885 volume 3, and so on, then 1886 volume 1, 1886 volume 2, and so forth).

There are various indexes to these Registry volumes, but the only index to cover the entire period of the Registry from 1704 to 1970 is the index of names.

What area is covered by the West Riding of Yorkshire?
The West Riding was the largest county in England, and covered a much larger area than present day West Yorkshire. It ranged from Sedbergh in the north, to Sheffield in the south, Slaidburn and parts of Rochdale in the west, to places like Snaith in the east. A map of the ancient parishes of the West Riding is available at:

http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/Misc/Maps/WRYParishes.gif

To check whether a particular place was in the West Riding, use the alphabetical index available at:

http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/Misc/Where/

Places followed by a (W) in the alphabetical index were in the West Riding.
It should be noted that none of the Yorkshire Registries of Deeds covered the area of the City of York.

Do the Registry records include a plan of the property?
Before 1885 plans were rarely sent in with memorials and they were not usually copied into the Registry volumes. Memorials therefore frequently refer to plans which can only be obtained by locating the original deed. Where plans were lodged with the original memorial, this is indicated in the Registry volume with three stars *** after the entry.
After 1885, any plans submitted to the Registry are bound into the Registry volumes after the text of the deed.

What do the terms ‘freehold’, ‘leasehold’ and ‘copyhold’ mean?
Property can be 'conveyed' or transferred from one person to another in different ways. A person's legal right to a property is known as their 'title'. The legal records which document the transfer of property from one person to another are called 'title deeds'.

Copyhold or customary hold describes a system where the tenant's title to his property was an extract (or 'copy') of the manor court roll. The alternative name arose because the property was held under agreed terms 'according to the custom of the manor'. Copyhold property was not accepted for registration at the West Riding Registry of Deeds until it became 'enfranchised' into freehold property following the Law of Property Act, 1922. Copyhold tenure was finally abolished in 1925.

Freehold land can be bought and sold outright. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, a freehold sale was usually effected by one of two procedures: 'bargain and sale' or 'lease and release'. It was never compulsory to register freehold title deeds at the West Riding Registry of Deeds, but increasingly it became customary to do so.

Leasehold occurs when a landowner 'lets' a property for a limited period of time, subject to certain terms and conditions contained in the lease. Only leases of 21 years or longer were registered at the West Riding Registry of Deeds. Be careful not to get muddled between a normal lease and the 'lease and release' procedure for freehold conveyance.

Further definitions of words and phrases found in deeds

Do you keep a Register of Land Charges?
No. The records of the former West Riding Registry of Deeds Land Charges Department were transferred on closure of the Registry to:
Land Charges & Agricultural Credits Department
Plumer House
Tailyour Road
Cornhill
Plymouth\;
PL6 5HY

DX 8249 PLYMOUTH 3

Tel. +44 (0)1752 636666
Fax +44 (0)1752 636699

Does the Registry of Deeds include anything other than property title deeds?
Yes. The Acts of Parliament which governed the Registry also allowed for the registration of:
• Wills affecting land within the West Riding
• Bargains and Sales
• Judgments, statutes and recognizances affecting land within the West Riding
• Enclosure Awards and Maps

How can I trace the history of my house?
The Archive Service holds a vast array of documentary material which can be used to trace the history of particular buildings. This can be a daunting prospect, especially if you have never visited an Archive Service office before. It is therefore well worth doing some basic reading about the most useful types of record you begin researching a particular building. Two helpful websites are:

http://www.house-detectives.co.uk/index.htm and

 

http://www.buildinghistory.org/

 

An added bonus for researching a house in Yorkshire is the relative ease of tracing the history of ownership of particular properties through the Riding Deeds Registries. If you live within the area of the former county of the West Riding of Yorkshire, you will almost certainly want to visit the West Riding Registry of Deeds.

 

---