How to Search the SA Deeds Registry Online

Every piece of land in South Africa is registered in one of the country's 11 deeds offices, and every registered piece carries a public record: who owns it, what bonds are against it, what conditions apply. That record is searchable. You don't need to be an attorney, you don't need the owner's permission, and you don't need to physically visit the deeds office unless you want to.

This guide walks through the three ways to search the registry, the fields you'll need depending on what you know about the property, and what the results actually contain. The fastest route — an online search via DeedsCheck — takes about a minute from address to delivered report.

The three ways to search

The deeds registry can be searched three ways, and the right choice depends on your situation:

• In person at the deeds office. Walk into the registry that covers the property, fill in a search request form, and a registry clerk pulls the file. Charges vary by office but are modest. The catch: you have to know which of the 11 offices to visit, and the office only has properties in its own jurisdiction. Useful if you're comfortable with a queue and need to inspect physical historical files.
• Through a conveyancing attorney. Any conveyancer can run a deeds search on your behalf via their direct registry connection. They'll typically charge a service fee on top of the registry's own fee. Reasonable if you're already working with an attorney on a transaction, expensive if you're doing it as a one-off.
• Online via a search service. Services like DeedsCheck connect directly to the registry's electronic interface, retrieve the data in real time, and deliver a formatted report. No queueing, no driving, and the data is exactly what the registry holds. Live pricing is on the order pages — search and preview are free, you only pay when you order a report.

For most people the online route is the obvious one. The rest of this guide focuses on that.

Step-by-step: searching online with DeedsCheck

The flow is designed to be friction-free — most of the work is figuring out which property you want, not the search itself.

1. Open the homepage. Type the property's street address into the search box on the DeedsCheck homepage. As you type, suggestions appear from the registry's address index. You can also paste an erf number directly (e.g. Erf 4521 Brackenfell) or search by owner name if you have one.
2. Pick the right property. If the address is ambiguous — common with sectional title buildings — the results show a tab per matching unit. Click through and confirm you have the right one. Property details (extent, suburb, registry) are shown free of charge so you can verify before paying.
3. Choose the report. Three main options: Property Document Search returns the list of registry documents available for the property (and is the route for ordering the Title Deed Copy itself), Property Search Report gives you owner + bonds + transfer history, and Valuation Report produces an automated market valuation. Each product page has a masked sample and shows current pricing.
4. Pay and receive. Payment is via PayFast — card, EFT, or Zapper. As soon as PayFast confirms, the report is generated and emailed to you. Title deed PDFs that haven't been requested before are pulled from the registry on demand; these take a few extra minutes.

If something can't be retrieved from the registry (rare, but it happens with very old deeds), we refund the order in full and offer a manual retrieval via the deeds office by hand.

Searching by address, by erf, or by owner

The registry indexes properties three ways, and you can search by any of them:

• By address. The most common starting point. Type the street address; we'll resolve it to the underlying erf number and deeds office. Works for nearly all freehold properties and sectional title units in urban areas. Less reliable for rural farms with no street number — use map search for those.
• By erf number. The most precise. If you know the erf number and township (e.g. Erf 4521 Brackenfell), the registry returns the exact property with no ambiguity. Useful when you're working off a deeds document or municipal record. Read our explainer on erf numbers if you're unsure what they mean.
• By owner name. Returns every property registered to a person across all 11 deeds offices. Used by attorneys in matrimonial and estate work, journalists tracing property portfolios, and anyone who needs to know what assets a person holds. Full name and South African ID number give the most accurate match — minor name variations can cause misses.

What you'll get back

A Property Search Report contains every piece of information the deeds registry holds on the property:

• Registered owner(s) — full name and South African ID number
• Title deed number, registration date, and purchase price
• Current bond — bond holder (the bank), amount, registration date
• Full transfer history — every previous sale, with dates, prices, and previous owners
• Erf number, township, registration division, and extent
• Registered conditions of title, servitudes, and restrictions
• Deeds office reference for ordering the underlying title deed document

The report is a clean PDF — useful for due diligence files, refinance applications, estate inventories, or just answering a question for yourself. Our walk-through on how to read a DeedsCheck property report annotates each section.

Common search problems

The search isn't always perfectly clean. The most common issues and how to handle them:

• Address not found. Usually a typo or a missing suburb. Try with just the street name and number; if that fails, switch to map search and pin the property visually.
• Multiple matches. Sectional title buildings often have several units at the same street address. The search returns tabs for each — pick the one matching the unit number.
• "Property not in registry." Rare but possible — usually means the address has been re-named recently and isn't yet linked. Cross-reference with the municipal valuation roll for the current registry name.
• Owner name spelt differently on the deed. The deed is the source of truth — if "Christopher" appears as "C.J." on the registry, both refer to the same person. Owner search is more forgiving with ID numbers than names.

If you're stuck, the property preview shows the registry's own description of the property — comparing this against what you expect is the fastest way to confirm you're looking at the right one before paying.

What it costs

The registry itself charges a per-search fee that's baked into our pricing. There are no hidden costs or per-page charges. All prices are in South African Rand and were current as at May 2026 — the order pages on the homepage always show the latest:

• Property Document Search — R55 — list of registry documents available for the property
• Property Search Report — R225 — ownership, bonds, transfer history
• Valuation Report — R149 — automated market valuation
• Title Deed Copy — R640 — the actual title deed PDF, ordered after a Property Document Search

Search results and previews are free — you only pay when you order a report. If you're comparing options, the masked samples on each product page show you exactly what you're paying for.

Privacy and POPIA

The deeds registry is explicitly public under the Deeds Registries Act, so searching it doesn't require the owner's permission. The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) still governs how that data is processed once retrieved — we mask preview details to prevent bulk scraping, we don't sell aggregated lists, and identifiers like ID numbers are only revealed in the paid report.

Common legitimate reasons to search: due diligence before a purchase, verifying a seller's identity, checking a landlord owns the property they're renting out, settling a deceased estate, or tracing a debtor's assets after a judgment. Curiosity about your own street is also fine — the registry was set up so anyone can check.

When you're ready, search any address on DeedsCheck — preview is free and the full report is a minute away.