Old bloke across the road from us died about a year ago, and his house has been apparently abandoned ever since.

It wants buying, renovating and renting or selling on, but how do I go about finding out who the current owner, (his estate?) is? Not entirely sure I want to do it myself, idle musings really, but it’s only deteriorating in its current situation.

Land registry? (costs i think)

I’d thought of that but presumably this would only tell me the name of the old bloke, not the beneficiary of any will or next of kin as they are unlikely to have re-registered ownership.

Contact your local authority as they probably have an Empty Homes Officer whose role is to get property such as these back on the market.

Land registry? (costs i think)

Yep, https://eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/www/wps/myportal/My_Home
charge of a few pounds to see details, property doesn’t have to be yours.

In fact, PM me the address and your email and I’ll pull the records for you (I’m in a good mood and did it the other day so have an account)

That’s very good of you tiim, I’ll take you up on that, but your e-mail address isn’t in your profile. If you don’t want to write it down on this thread, (and I’d not blame you) could you perhaps look at mine and drop me a blank e-mail.

Thanks.

It’s only £6 for the title deeds and plan (£3 each) and will take seconds to obtain online.

Finding the executor will be the tricky part.

Local paper archive? Court?

If Probate has been granted, you can obtain a copy of the will, presumably via the Government or Probate Court. The government web site Wills and Probate section will have details on this. The Will will have details of who stuff is left to and the names of the Executors.

However, probate can be quite slow, so its possible the house is not abandoned, just people are stuck either waiting for the probate grant so they can distribute / someone may have contested the will / they may be waiting for the government department that assesses over payments of social security etc who are based somewhere in the Forest of Dean. That lot are notoriously slow and they do not even start to contact you until after probate has gone through. We are talking 6 months to a year of waiting for this department…. Noting can be distributed until they finish with you according to their letters, which have quite a threatening tone even though none of it is the Executors own faults.

Have a look through the letterbox. If there’s a load of post, find a way in and go through it until you get a clue. If there’s no mail it probably means somebody’s coming in from time to time to pick stuff up. Or they’ve put a redirect on. Either way, write a letter to the address saying you want to buy it.

but your e-mail address isn’t in your profile.

Doh. Emailed you.

Any other older folk in the street? Assuming he’s been there for some years then other older neighbours may know the wider family and possibly how to get in touch with them.

I’d go with gregsd’s suggestion first. It will be the housing authority, so district council or city/borough council.