Changing your name on house deeds in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Do I have to change my name on my house deeds in Scotland?#

No. Registers of Scotland, which keeps the Land Register, says you do not have to tell it you have changed your name and are not legally required to change it on the register. A new name does not transfer ownership: you still own the property and can still sell it. When you sell or remortgage, the solicitor acting tells Registers of Scotland about the change and it updates your title. If you want it done sooner, Registers of Scotland charges nothing, and takes the request online with evidence.

For England and Wales, changing your name with HM Land Registry has the detail.

How do I update my title sheet in Scotland?#

1. Find every title. Registers of Scotland says the onus is on you to identify all affected title numbers. Its ScotLIS service can help, or its Customer Services team.
2. Gather the evidence. Its guidance accepts written confirmation from a solicitor or another responsible person, such as a GP, an MSP or an MP, that they have known you under both names, or a statutory declaration or affidavit that you swear before an authorised person. You also need evidence linking you, in your new name, to the property: the property's address in either document will do, or a separate letter from a solicitor or other responsible person.
3. Apply online through the Public Title Inaccuracy Enquiry service. It asks for your contact details, whether you are the registered owner, the title number and the property's address, and what is wrong and how it should be put right. Uploads must be PDF, JPEG, PNG or GIF files of 75MB or less, with names under 40 characters, and the enquiry must be completed in one session: you cannot save a draft.
4. Wait for the email. Registers of Scotland emails the outcome. If information is missing it may reject the request or ask for more, and you can apply again.

The evidence list does not mention a deed poll or a marriage certificate. Of the two routes it does name, a statutory declaration is the one you make yourself, without needing someone who has known you under both names; statutory declarations explains who takes one in Scotland. With the right evidence, Registers of Scotland generally shows both your former name and your new name on the title sheet; after a change of gender, it shows only the new name.

It publishes no timescale, but may expedite a request when delay would mean financial loss or hardship, personal loss or hardship, or the loss of a future transaction.

Its change of name pages speak only of title sheets in the Land Register. If your home is still recorded in the General Register of Sasines, which dates from 1617 and which Registers of Scotland says it is replacing with the Land Register, ask it through its contact page what it needs.

How do I change my name with Land Registry in Northern Ireland?#

nidirect says you fill in form 100A, Application for Registration, and have a solicitor complete a certificate for you, and that Land Registry charges £90.

1. Get form 100A from the Department of Finance's Land Registry forms page.
2. Ask a solicitor for the certificate. The Department of Finance's sample, Precedent 11.J, has the solicitor certify that you, now known by your new name, are the person named in your marriage certificate or deed poll, a copy of which is attached, and the same person as the registered owner.
3. Pay £90 by cheque to "DoF General Account". You cannot apply online.
4. Post it to Land & Property Services, Land Registration, Lanyon Plaza, 7 Lanyon Place, Town Parks, Belfast BT1 3LP.

nidirect says Land Registry can take 6 to 8 weeks if you send the right documents and fee. To check the result, a copy of your folio, the record of the property and its owner, costs £11 by contacting a Land & Property Services office.

The £90 matches the fee the Land Registry (Fees) Order (Northern Ireland) 2014 sets for an entry on the register not priced elsewhere in it, which is £70 when a practitioner lodges it electronically. The Department of Finance consulted from February to May 2026 on a new fees order, drafted for 2027. Its guidance also says no fee is payable for updating a name changed on marriage if the application goes in with one to register a transfer or a charge, the Land Registry's word for a mortgage.

On a sale, the transfer describes you as "AX (formerly known as AB)", with a certified copy of the marriage certificate or deed poll and the same certificate of identity. If your property is registered in the Registry of Deeds rather than Land Registry, nidirect says you cannot update your name there: change of name applications can only be made to Land Registry.