Perhaps you’ve identified a piece of land that you would like to see improved: it may be that you simply want it cleaned up, want a new playground, or you think it would be a great conservation area. But whatever your use, someone owns that land and you will need to seek their permission.

It may be obvious who owns it or it may not. If a company hundreds of miles away has somehow come into owning a small piece of land for which they have no plans (and this happens) then it’s not surprising it’s an overgrown dumping ground. All land belongs to someone (in theory!) and if the local council cannot help, then the Land Registry can usually tell you who owns the bit you’re interested in.

Before you can start a project on a piece of land you need to find out who the landowner is in order to get permission to work on their land. To do this you can contact the Land Registry Office. It’s a little bureaucratic, but given that they keep records of who owns almost all the land in England and Wales, perhaps that’s not surprising.

To find the identity of a landowner from the Land Registry Office you will firstly need to fill out an SIM (Search of Index Map) form. There are two ways to get this form:

1. Download it from www.landregistry.gov.uk. It can be found under the ‘Publications/Forms’ menu and then ‘Forms’ menu.

2. Phone the Land Registry enquiry line on 020 7917 8888 You can request for an SIM form to be sent to you, free of charge.

Once you have a SIM form you need to fill it out and submit it to the relevant regional office, along with a plan of the area you want to work on outlined in red.

To find out which office is the local Land Registry office, you can look at Practice Guide 51. To get hold of this you can either download it from the website, www.landregistry.gov.uk (select the ‘Publications/Forms’ menu, then the ‘Leaflets’ menu and then the ‘Practice Guides’ menu), or you can phone the enquiry line (020 7917 8888) and ask for one to be sent to you.

When the SIM form has been filled out and sent in to the Land Registry Office, the application will be processed and the title numbers for the land in question will be sent to you. This is free of charge, unless the number of titles returned on your search is over 10. In this case there is a charge of £4 per title. So 9 titles are free; 10 titles are free; 11 titles cost £4; 12 titles cost £8; and so on. If your search returns more than 10 titles, you will be informed by the Land Registry office and asked to pay the fee. They can then send you the title numbers.

Tip: Applications can often be broken down into several smaller ones covering a smaller area that will be more likely to return less than 10 titles.

Once you have the title numbers you can use this information to find the identity of the landowner. You will need to fill out an OC1 form. This can be found, on the website (www.landregistry.gov.uk) under the ‘Publications/Forms’ menu and then ‘Forms’ menu on the website. Alternatively, you can phone the Land Registry enquiry phone number (020 7917 8888) and they will send you a copy.

Once you have filled out the OC1 form, send it to the relevant local Land Registry office and if there is a registered landowner they will send you a copy of the register (£4) and the title plan (£4). It is then your responsibility to contact the landowner to get permission to work on their land.

The Land Registry office only covers registered land. It is possible that the landowner will not be registered. However, you should still try to discover who the landowner is. This can be done by going to the area, asking local people, asking the council and doing some footwork of your own.

In Scotland, you need to contact Registers of Scotland on 0845 6070161 or check their website www.ros.gov.uk. The website has the relevant forms and plenty of guidance materials.

In Northern Ireland, the Land Registry operates under different legislation and its practices and prescribed forms are quite different. The starting point here is 028 90251515 or www.lrni.gov.uk.

Often it’s not that difficult. The land belongs to the council, a housing association or a local business and the first step is to approach them. Many landowners will be very happy to have a local organisation looking after their land and may even be prepared to help with small amounts of money or tools. The best way forward is to get a licence or lease, or at the very least a letter giving permission to work on the land. The Countryside Agency guide Making Spaces has more details on this and examples of the issues that a licence could cover.

Sometimes it is impossible to find out who owns land – usually for historical reasons. This needn’t be

a setback: there are perhaps 50 or more community gardens around the UK that are on land where ownership is not clear.