Guide
Short answer
You can search Canadian property by owner name in British Columbia (LTSA), Alberta (SPIN2), and Québec (registre foncier). You cannot in Ontario — its land registry indexes by property, not owner, so Ontario holdings must be inferred from corporate registered offices, mortgage registrations, litigation filings, and assessment records.
6 of 6 steps below you can run yourself for nothing. 4 things in this area cannot be done lawfully by anyone.
The situation
You need to know whether a particular person owns real estate — for a judgment, a family law matter, an estate, or before extending credit. You've searched their name and found nothing.
6 steps
In order of yield. Every step marked “do it yourself” is one you can run without us, with the cost stated where there is one.
Step 01
This determines whether the task is a lookup or a research project. BC, Alberta, and Québec support owner-name search directly. Ontario does not. Get this right before spending anything, because the Ontario approach is entirely different.
Step 02
BC's LTSA and Alberta's SPIN2 support owner-name search for account holders, and Québec's registre foncier is searchable and inexpensive — often about a dollar per document. This directly answers the question.
Step 03
Small-company registered offices are very often the director's home address. Search Corporations Canada and the Ontario Business Registry for the person, note every registered office, then search those addresses in the land registry to confirm ownership. This closes a surprising share of Ontario property questions.
Step 04
PPSA registrations, construction liens, and writs frequently name a property address. Litigation filings do too. Each gives you an address to test against the land registry, converting a name search into a series of property searches.
Step 05
Municipal assessment rolls are inspectable, and some municipalities publish searchable property data. Coverage and access vary widely by municipality, and this generally means contacting the municipality rather than a web search.
Step 06
A title search on a confirmed address gives you registered owners, mortgages and their lenders, easements, liens, and the transfer history with consideration amounts — which establishes what was paid and when.
Honest limits
Not a paywall and not a coverage gap. Each of these is either absent from every Canadian public record or unlawful to obtain — and anyone selling it to you is misrepresenting what they have, or committing an offence to get it.
Search Ontario property by owner name
Ontario's land registry has no owner-name index. This is a structural limitation, not a paywall.
Find out how much is left on their mortgage
The registry records that a mortgage exists and often its original principal. Payments are not registered, so the current balance is not public.
Find property held in a trust or by a nominee
The registry names the registered owner, which may not be the beneficial owner. Trust arrangements are generally not disclosed.
Get a nationwide property search in one query
There is no national Canadian land registry. Each province operates its own system with its own index and fees.
Everything we decline at every tier, with the reason for each
Before you pay
If you do need it
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Questions
No. Ontario's land registry is indexed by property, not by owner, so there is no way to ask which properties a person owns. Ontario holdings have to be inferred from corporate registered offices, mortgage and PPSA registrations, litigation filings, and municipal assessment records. This is the most consequential limitation in Canadian property research.
British Columbia through the LTSA, Alberta through SPIN2, and Québec through the registre foncier all support owner-name search. Ontario does not. This makes asset research meaningfully cheaper and more conclusive in those three provinces than in Ontario.
Typically ten to thirty-five dollars per parcel depending on the province, with Québec at the low end — often around a dollar per document — and Ontario at the higher end. Costs add up quickly when you are testing multiple candidate addresses, which is the usual shape of an Ontario search.
Yes. Land title registries are statutory public registries, one of the five categories PIPEDA permits collecting from without consent. They exist precisely so the public can determine who holds an interest in land before transacting.
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