Property - Finance: Let your fingers do the snooping

OK, own up. Does your curiosity sometimes get the better of you? Do you often get an irresistible urge to peer over the six-foot high hedge that suddenly appears in a neighbour's garden one day or to find out who owns the turreted mansion that gazes imperiously over the local park?

As a nation of home-lovers, we're always being goaded and encouraged by TV pundits and property gurus to turn our houses and flats into personal show-homes. So we could be forgiven for a little harmless eavesdropping of our own in our quest for designer chic.

Next time you fancy a bit of snooping, though, you won't have to travel further than your back bedroom or study, because a website run by the Land Registry will do much of the work for you. Simply log on to www.land registeronline.gov.uk and for a pounds 2 fee you can find out the owner, lender (if any), price (if registered since 1 April, 2000) and rights of way of almost any property in Britain.

The site really comes into its own if you need the lowdown on a house you may have had your eye on for a while. This is because that, apart from the aforementioned basics, it'll tell you about any restricted covenants or second charges on the property - facts that could prove invaluable if you make a offer. The LR site will also be a boon if you are renting or leasing a house or flat and need to contact your landlord.

Cherry Hunkin, who manages the site, says: "It's been a great success - people are always asking about it. The Land Registry are currently getting more than 1,000 paid inquiries a day, many of them from this site. Though the website's a pilot at the moment, we plan to show details of the land attached to individual properties on it early next year."

Anyone - whether buyer, seller or interested party - has been able to get title details of UK properties since 1990 - although those key price- tags were only added three years ago. Going on-line is far quicker and easier than contacting the LR by post, however. The Registry site also provides useful pointers for buyers and sellers with its own FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section.

And if you're a bit of a history buff, it includes a concise summary of the Land Registry's role since it started in 1862. One little nugget that caught my eye was that in 1925 only 14 per cent of the population owned a property. Today the figure is 69 per cent, says the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

Meanwhile, back to our e-search. Now that you've checked out that handsome gem at the end of the road, you need to know who's selling it. If there is no estate agent's billboard outside, you can call up www.rightmove.co.uk. There you can find the properties of more than half the UK's top 100 estate agents - and hopefully the one you are looking for. Triumph at last. As a final reward for your hard work, you can now arrange a viewing of the property with the local agent and, if it meets all your needs, make an offer.

It may not of course, in which case you can resume your e-search on one of the many estate agents' websites that have sprouted up in the past three years. These give you photographs of likely properties, breakdowns of price, size and style, plus floor plans and internal layouts.

You may even decide to move to another area altogether. Again, you can do much of your groundwork on the internet. A site called www.upmy street.com is positively encyclopaedic. Tap in the postcode and it'll tell you the names of all the local schools, rail and Tube stations, doctors, department stores and petrol stations, local councillors, the current MP and MEP and, if you're a real information junkie, the percentage of street-lamps that are out-of-order.

Then just to make sure you turn up at the right place when you book that first viewing, it'll will give you a handy local map, too. And there's more. If you or your partner happen to be job-seeking, too, it'll give you a wide range of local opportunities. Upmystreet is also a property version of the Glass's Guide, with an A to Z of properties ranging from the detached, semi-detached and terraced house to the one-, two- and three-bedroom apartment under various price headings.

Then, to satisfy your curiosity still further, it'll compare local property prices with the national average over the past three months. Bernard Clarke of the Council of Mortgage Lenders says the real virtue of Net searches is speed. "Websites will come into their own if the Government decides to introduce home information or sellers' packs. They will provide an invaluable back-up service for buyers and sellers and help to hasten the whole home-buying process."

Copyright 2003 Independent Newspapers UK Limited
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.