You have found a house you want. It is not for sale. Before you can do anything about that, you need to know who owns it, or at least how to reach them.
Ownership of registered property in England and Wales is public information. Anyone can look it up. You do not need a reason, a solicitor, or a connection to the property.
The title register, £7
Start at the government's property search service. Searching for a property to see whether it is registered is free. Once you have found it, an official copy of the title register costs £7 to download, and the title plan showing the boundary is another £7.
The register gives you:
the registered owner, with a name and a correspondence address whether it is freehold or leasehold the price paid, where that has been recorded any mortgages or other charges secured against it restrictions, covenants and rights of way
Certified copies sent by post, which you only need if you are proving ownership in a legal process, cost £11 per document.
The correspondence address is the useful field. If it is different from the property address, the owner does not live there. That is either a landlord or someone who has inherited, and both are more likely to sell than an owner occupier.
When a company owns it
If the registered proprietor is a limited company, you have more to work with than a name.
Companies House is free and tells you the company's status, its filing history, its officers and its charges. What you are looking for is stress. Accounts overdue. An active proposal to strike the company off. A director who resigned recently. Charges satisfied in a cluster, which usually means properties being sold or refinanced. A dormant company holding property is often a portfolio nobody is actively managing.
Land Registry also publishes a monthly dataset of every title in England and Wales held by a UK company, free to download, with the company number and the proprietor's address. It is a large file rather than a lookup tool, but it is the source behind most commercial ownership data.
When there is no record
Not all land in England and Wales is registered. Registration became compulsory on sale over a period ending in the 1990s, so property that has stayed in the same hands for decades, or passed by inheritance rather than sale, may never have been registered. If the search returns nothing, the evidence of ownership sits in paper deeds held by the owner or their solicitor.
That is frustrating for research, and it is also a signal. Unregistered usually means very long held.
What the register will not tell you
It will not tell you whether someone wants to sell. It will not tell you what the property is worth. And for a leasehold flat it will only give you that flat's title, so working out who owns the freehold and how many of the flats have been sold off takes several lookups.
Approaching an owner
You do not actually need a name to make contact. Letters addressed to "The Owner" at the property address reach landlords through tenants and reach absent owners through post redirection, and they work. Buying the register first is worth it when you want to know about mortgages and restrictions before you commit time, or when the correspondence address gives you a better route than the property itself.
When you write, be specific and be brief. Say which property, say you are a buyer rather than an agent, say you are not asking for a valuation, and give one way to reply. Most letters get no response. That is normal, and it is a volume game.
Know the number before you knock
There is no point starting a conversation you cannot finish. Before you approach anyone, work out what the property is worth finished and what you can afford to pay for it today, so the first number you say is one you can stand behind.
That is what Bricks 'N' Mortar is for. Set the end value from comparable sales, take off refurbishment, fees, stamp duty and finance, and see your maximum purchase price.
Fees quoted are HM Land Registry's published charges at the time of writing and cover England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate registries and different fees.