FOOL'S EYE VIEW
Find Out About Your Neighbours

By Jane Mack (TMFJane)
May 1, 2003

I've recently discovered that postcodes are far more useful than I've ever given them credit for. Oh, the joy of the Internet and what fun it can be to surf.

For a start, following the 2001 census, you can now find out a ton of information about the area in which you live or, more to the point, the area where you might be thinking of living. If you're house-hunting at the moment, you're going to want to know about things like crime statistics and what sort of people are likely to be your neighbours.

The Office of National Statistics has very kindly put exactly this sort of information on their Neighbourhood Statistics website. Assuming I wanted to live within walking distance of Fool HQ, the postcode throws up all sorts of fascinating information. It's based in the Cavendish ward of the Westminster local authority and I was surprised to find so many people living in such a small area because I had thought it was mostly made up of shops, offices and hotels. But apparently 8,500 people have homes there.

There's a deprivation index too. With 1 being the most deprived ward in England, Cavendish ranks at 5,318 out of a total of 8,414 wards which isn't a bad rating although I was pleased to find that my own postcode in West Berkshire puts me in a slightly better area.

Less than 2% of people living in my ward are unemployed compared to 4.4% in Cavendish. However, 7% of people living in my ward are on Income Support whereas only 5% are in Cavendish.

Within Westminster 35% of households are owner-occupied, 29% live in social rented housing (renting from the Council, a Housing Association or a Registered Social Landlord) and the remaining 36% rent privately or live rent-free. In West Berkshire 75% of homes are owner-occupied with only 14% living in social rented housing. Even more interesting is that almost 50% of Cavendish residents live alone whereas only 25% do in my patch.

Crime is obviously an important factor to consider too and in Westminster it's jolly high with the rate of violence against the person per 1,000 people standing at 36.6 whereas in West Berkshire it's only 4.5. There's a fair bit of car crime in Westminster too.

I think I'll stay where I am!

Another website that has proved to be surprisingly revealing is the Land Registry's new facility to be incredibly nosy about the neighbours. Since 1990, the public has been able to look at any register of title in England and Wales. Before then only the registered owners and people with the owner's permission could look. Now you don't even have to fill in a form and post it off – it's all online.

I had a go last night and was flabbergasted at the sort of information being made available to you and me. Punch in any postcode, pay £2 online and find out how much your neighbour paid for his house and who his mortgage is with! Admittedly, the price he paid will only be shown if he bought it within the last three years and if the property's not registered then there obviously won't be any information at all.

As two of my neighbours have moved in fairly recently I did a search on both of them and was astounded to find that one neighbour had paid more than the asking price for their home when we'd been led to believe by the estate agent that it sold for a fair bit less. The other neighbour had already told me what she paid for hers and it's nice to know she told the truth.

Getting hold of this information took less than two minutes and, frankly, I'm surprised it was so easy to find out so much about my neighbours. I'm not sure they'd be too pleased if they knew.

At any rate, you'll get a description of the property, the name of the owner, the mortgage lender (if any), the price that was paid (if it's been registered since April 2000), any rights of way and any conditions or restrictions. Mine even showed when we remortgaged five years ago.

So, if you want to find out who owns a specific property or you're interested in buying an empty house and want to approach the owner, you know where to look. All you need is a credit card.

While it appears we can all now play at being Big Brother if we want to, the information from both websites should prove very useful if you're thinking about moving house.

More: The Fool's Homeowning Centre