Are you looking to buy land, find the owner of a neighboring property, or verify information before a transaction? In each of these cases, the question is the same: who owns this real estate? Several public tools allow you to obtain this answer, but they do not all provide the same level of detail. Understanding their differences helps avoid wasting time with the wrong approach.
What the online land registry reveals (and does not reveal)
The most common reflex is to consult the cadastral plan on the official site cadastre.gouv.fr. You enter an address or a municipality name, and the map displays the parcels with their references (section and number). It’s free and accessible without an account.
The catch is that the online land registry does not mention the owner’s name. It indicates the shape of the parcel, its area, and its location, but nothing about the identity of the person who holds it. To link a cadastral reference to a name, you need to go through another step.
If you already know how to find out if someone is an owner, you probably know this limitation. The cadastral reference remains the starting point for any search, as it serves as a key to access other registers.
Request at the town hall: the cadastral matrix and its access conditions
Once you have the parcel reference in hand, you can go to the town hall of the municipality where the property is located. The land service or the town hall secretariat can provide you with a cadastral matrix extract.
This document contains the name of the owner registered in the file, as well as the list of parcels and built properties they own in that municipality. You also get information related to the surface area and nature of the property (vacant land, house, commercial premises).
Why the town hall and not another service? Because municipalities maintain their own copy of the cadastral matrix. The request can be made on-site or by mail. Two situations arise:
- You know the parcel but not the owner: the town hall can provide you with the name and address of the owner listed in the matrix, without the need to justify your request.
- You know a person’s name and want to know what they own in the municipality: you must then justify a legitimate interest (legal procedure, inheritance, neighborhood dispute). The town hall may refuse if the reason is deemed insufficient.
- In both cases, only the municipality’s data is accessible. For a search across multiple municipalities, you must repeat the process in each relevant town hall.
Land publicity service: the mortgage status for further details
The land registry and the town hall provide the owner’s name, but not the legal history of the property. To obtain a higher level of detail, there is the Land Publicity Service (formerly the mortgage office), attached to the General Directorate of Public Finances.
You can request a mortgage status, also called a formalities statement. This document outlines all acts published on a property: sale deed, donation, ongoing mortgage, easement. It confirms the identity of the current owner and allows you to check if the property is encumbered with debts.
How to formulate the request
The search can be done in two ways: by property (with the cadastral reference) or by person (with the name and date of birth). The request is made via a paper form or online through specialized platforms that forward the request to the competent service.
This service is paid, unlike the consultation of the land registry or the town hall. The fee depends on the type of document requested and the number of formalities published on the property. The response time varies from a few days to several weeks depending on the workload of the service.
National co-ownership register: a complementary source in full evolution
If the property in question is part of a co-ownership, the national co-ownership registration register (RNIC), managed by Anah, offers a complementary avenue. Accessible for free online by simply searching an address, it identifies the property manager in charge of the building and provides data on the co-ownership itself.
This register does not directly provide the name of each co-owner. However, it allows you to contact the property manager, who can direct you to the right contact.
A decree dated June 23, 2026, significantly expands the content of this register. Starting January 2028, each co-ownership file must include:
- The energy class of the building from the collective DPE, ranging from A to G.
- The presence or absence of a multi-year work plan (PPT), indicating its status (voted or not).
- The identifier of the National Building Reference (RNB), which will link each building to other public databases.
- An alert threshold on unpaid charges, expressed in quarters of delay.
These developments transform the RNIC into a transparency tool that, combined with the cadastral matrix and the mortgage status, allows for a complete profile of a co-owned property.
Which method to choose according to your situation
The right tool depends on what you are looking for. For a simple owner’s name from an address, the town hall is sufficient in most cases. To verify the existence of mortgages before a purchase, only the mortgage status from the Land Publicity Service provides this guarantee.
The online land registry remains the starting point, even if it does not provide any names. It provides the parcel reference without which other steps are slower. Starting with the land registry, then requesting the town hall or the Land Publicity Service according to the level of detail required is the most efficient sequence for most searches.
Keep in mind that this data is governed by privacy protection rules. Public registers provide a name and an address of the owner, but never a phone number or email. Beyond administrative tools, any further research falls under specific procedures that must comply with the current legal framework.