Home ownership

[Gill D]

Hi

Does anyone know how to find out if a property was owned or rented in the 1920s please and if owned the name of the owner The property was in London NW3.

Thank you

Gill

[margaretmarch]

You could look at the Electoral Register and on there it gives people's qualification for voting which included property ownership in those days. Nowadays it is not relevant as we can all vote after a certain age, but previously only certain sections of society could vote.

The library local to the address is the place to start to ask if they have the registers for the year concerned or if not where they are held.

Another possibly is the Land Registry have a look here http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/publi...ty-in-the-past.

Margaret

[Gill D]

Thanks Margaret. I will have at this and see how far I can get. I know the family are on the ERs at the time do will check to see if anyone comes up

[Gill D]

The electoral rolls show the male with R O and the female with H O. I know somewhere on the forum there is an explanation of the codes but can't seem to find it, can anyone help?

[Night Owl]

There was a thread here about it

http://www.familytreeforum.com/showthread.php/107484-Meaning-of-letters-on-Electoral-register

[Gill D]

Thank you Jackie. I knew I had seen a post somewhere but it didn't come up in my electoral roll search for some reason. So I have now confirmed that the male dad eligible due to being resident and his occupation and the female,through her husbands occupation. So from the male having an R does that make him the owner or just resident I wonder. What would you think?

[Janet in Yorkshire]

If the house still exists, you could try writing to the present occupier and ask them if they have any documentation/information about previous owners. There was a phase, around the time of transfer from paper to electronic recording, that people buying their homes were given photocopies of all the paperwork re previous sales, searches etc.
(One person generously shared their copy with me as she knew I was doing a local history of the village and trying to build up an archive. That went back to the mid 1800's with a letter of proof of ownership of the land, details of a dwelling being built, then various searches for ownership of the "acquired" garden, which was eventually sold off as a plot for a new build, dated 1999. The documentation was fascinating as it included copies of 3 wills and details of various sales of the land, letter from the parish clerk about the location of allotments during WW2 etc.)
Include a SAE. You will be no worse off if you get no reply, only the price of a couple of stamps.

Jay

[Gill D]

Thank you Janet a suggestion that I hadn't thought of. Current houses in the road are worth £2m plus so expect it was a house that was lived in by many families due to its size

[margaretmarch]

Thank you Janet a suggestion that I hadn't thought of. Current houses in the road are worth £2m plus so expect it was a house that was lived in by many families due to its size

Well I know from personal experience that you do sometimes get papers relating to previous owners when you buy a property and in fact this thread has made me think tha maybe I should put the details of a property we owned on the internet somewhere for people following to find as currently it is in paper format.
Margaret