Official Land Registry Document
Certified Folio & Plan
Quick Answer
A Certified Folio for a Dalkey property is an officially certified copy of the registered title kept by the Property Registration Authority. The copy reproduces the registered owner, property description, Nature of Title, Part III burdens and every registered charge, certified as correct on the day of issue. In Dalkey, where granite quarrying reshaped the hill and small clifftop plots command exceptional values, certified evidence of the registered extent is what a purchaser's solicitor requires.
A Dalkey purchase or refinance reaches a point where the party on the other side will not act on an information copy. The Certified Folio provides the registered content under certification by the Property Registration Authority, in a form suitable for a lender, a court or a professional adviser.
Official Land Registry Document
Certified Folio & Plan
Location
Dalkey
County
Dublin
Postal Delivery
Certified hard copy by post
A Certified Folio is an officially certified copy of a registered title drawn from the Property Registration Authority, produced under the Registration of Title Act 1964. Certification allows a person who did not obtain the document to place weight on it, which an uncertified copy can never support on its own account.
The entries are the same in each version. What differs is whose confidence the document must carry. For enquiries on your own behalf an information copy withholds nothing. Once a lender's solicitor, a probate officer or a registrar must act, the Authority's certification replaces the word of an interested party.
The reproduction takes in the folio complete: the property description, the registered owner with the Nature of Title, and the burdens section recording rights of way, covenants, wayleaves and any registered charges. Because dealings arrive constantly, certification is the means by which the record is fixed to a single day.
Dalkey concentrates several difficulties into a small area. Granite was quarried on the hill above the village for generations, much of it moved down to build the harbour piers at Dún Laoghaire, and the workings left rock faces, terraces and old tramway routes that boundaries now follow awkwardly. Plots here are frequently small, values are exceptional, and a strip of ground a metre wide can be worth arguing about. Coastal titles run to cliff edges and rocky foreshore rather than to tidy garden walls, and rights of way down to Coliemore, Bulloch and the bathing places are long established and unevenly registered.
Certification confirms the register precisely. Where a boundary follows a quarried rock face, what the folio says and what the ground shows can be difficult to reconcile, and that reconciliation is the solicitor's work.
Undecided about which document suits your position? The usual cases are these:
| Situation | Recommended Document |
|---|---|
| Find who is registered as owner of a Dalkey property | Folio Search |
| Check what charges are secured on the property | Folio Search |
| Look at the registered position before you bid | Folio Search |
| Provide a lender with certified evidence of ownership | Certified Folio |
| Submit registered title evidence in a boundary dispute | Certified Folio |
| Prove registered title in an estate application | Certified Folio |
| Give a solicitor material for certification of title | Certified Folio |
| Obtain the registered extent drawn on the plan | Certified Map |
If you are unsure, our team can advise before you order — email info@landregistryonline.ie.
Certification stamp and seal: the seal by which the Property Registration Authority certifies this copy.
Folio number and county reference: the number under which this title is registered in County Dublin.
Property description: the registered description of the house and the ground attaching to it.
Registered owner: the name and address held on the register.
Nature of Title: absolute, qualified, possessory or good leasehold as the folio states.
Part III burdens: rights of way to the shore, quarry-era access routes, covenants and service wayleaves.
Registered charges: mortgages and any other security entered on this folio.
Instrument references: numbers for the instruments registered against this folio.
Date of certification: the date appearing on the certification itself.
The registered extent as drawn, which requires a Certified Map.
Cliff stability, rock condition or coastal erosion.
Foreshore below the high water mark, or title to the offshore islands.
The terms of an old grant of way — obtain an Instrument Copy.
Buying a clifftop or sea-facing house
Values here make the registered extent worth establishing precisely. Certified evidence, read with the map, is what a purchaser's solicitor works from before advising.
Boundary disputes on small high-value plots
A narrow strip of ground in Dalkey can carry substantial value. Certified confirmation of what the register actually records is the necessary foundation for any argument about it.
Lending against a house on the coast road
Lenders financing purchases here require certified title evidence, particularly where a boundary follows a quarried rock face or a title runs towards the cliff.
Administering a Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown estate
Executors dealing with a Dalkey property use the Certified Folio to prove the deceased's registered ownership to the Probate Office and to financial institutions.
Rights of way to Coliemore or Bulloch
Access to the harbours and bathing places has been exercised for generations, though not always registered. Certified confirmation of Part III distinguishes a registered right from a customary path.
Selling a site from an established garden
Where ground is separated from a larger holding, certified evidence of the registered position precedes the transfer and the opening of the new folio.
Buying property on former quarry ground
Holdings on the hill can carry access routes and rights created when stone was worked and moved. Certified evidence brings those entries to light.
Home Buyers
Buying in Dalkey means your solicitor examines the registered title before you are bound, and certified material is what supports firm advice. Given values here, purchasers should treat the registered extent as a matter to be established rather than assumed.
Sellers
Certified evidence prepared before listing removes friction from requisitions. It matters most where a boundary runs along rock or a clifftop and a purchaser's solicitor will ask precisely where the registered line falls.
Solicitors
Practitioners account for the greater number of Certified Folio orders here. A solicitor certifying title to a lender on a Dalkey property needs certified material for the file, and quarry-era rights and coastal boundaries each demand the underlying instruments before their effect can be stated.
Investors
Buyers acquiring property in the village and along the coast rely on certified evidence to fix what each folio genuinely covers, since small differences in registered extent translate into significant value here.
Developers
Any scheme in Dalkey turns on clear registered title in advance. Certified evidence of burdens is essential where a site adjoins old quarry ground or where an access route to the shore crosses the land in question, and the confined street pattern of the old village leaves little room for error.
Dalkey is a small place with disproportionately complicated titles, and the reasons are geological and historical in equal measure. Granite was worked on the hill above the village on a considerable scale, much of it taken down to build the piers enclosing the harbour at Dún Laoghaire, and the quarrying left the ground reshaped. Rock faces, benches and the routes along which stone was moved became the lines that later boundaries followed, and a boundary running along a quarried face is far harder to survey and to describe than one following a wall. Old access routes created for the workings also survive as registered rights on some holdings.
Scale compounds the difficulty. Plots in the village and along the coast road are frequently small, and values are among the highest in the country. A discrepancy of a metre between the registered extent and the wall on the ground, which would be a curiosity in a rural county, is worth contesting here, and boundary questions accordingly reach solicitors far more often than they would elsewhere.
The coast supplies the third element. Titles run towards cliff edges and rocky shore rather than ending at level garden ground, and the point at which private registered title gives way to foreshore is not obvious on the face of it. Rights of way down to Coliemore Harbour, to Bulloch and to the bathing places have been used for generations, but usage and registration are different things, and only Part III shows which paths carry a registered right.
Dalkey Island lies offshore and is not part of any mainland folio, though its presence colours expectations about what a seaward title includes.
The medieval core around Castle Street, with its surviving fortified houses, holds titles of real antiquity in a very confined street pattern, where party walls and shared passages between buildings generate rights that must be traced through the instruments creating them.
Ordering the certified version where a plain search would do
Where you want only the owner's identity or the charges registered on a Dalkey property, the ordinary search gives the same content at lower cost. Certification is justified when a third party must rely on the document. If none of that applies here, order a Folio Search for Dublin — — /folio-search-dublin/.
Leaning on certification obtained some time ago
The certificate speaks as at the day it was issued and reveals nothing lodged afterwards. Where completion or drawdown turns on the present register, an older copy will not do.
Treating the folio as the whole of the title work
Only registered legal interests appear on it. Structural condition, cliff stability and planning compliance sit outside the register, so a clean Dalkey folio is no comment on the property itself.
Trusting the wall over the registered extent
This is the characteristic Dalkey dispute. Boundaries following quarried rock or running towards a cliff are described imperfectly, walls have been rebuilt, and a small discrepancy carries real money. The filed plan governs, and it should be obtained before an offer rather than after a disagreement.
Assuming a path to the sea is a registered right
Routes to Coliemore, Bulloch and the bathing places have been walked for generations without necessarily being granted. Long use is not registration, and only the Part III entries establish what actually attaches to the title.
Several Dalkey questions require more than the Certified Folio. A Certified Map is close to essential here, since the registered extent rather than the wall on the ground is what governs, and boundaries following rock are poorly conveyed in words. Where a quarry-era access right or an old grant of way must be construed, obtain the registered instrument as an Instrument Copy. Cliff stability and coastal erosion are physical matters outside the register, and foreshore below the high water mark is not part of a private title.
Send the address and Eircode of the Dalkey property, with the folio number where you hold it. Given how much turns on the registered extent here, it is usually worth ordering the Certified Map at the same time rather than returning for it later.
Indicate whether the order arises from a lender's requirement, a probate application, a solicitor's certification of title or a boundary question. If an old grant of way is also needed, mention it and both can be prepared together.
Delivery time:
The Certified Folio is issued as a certified hard copy and sent out by post. Since the seal applied by the Property Registration Authority is what the document rests on, it is supplied physically rather than as a file.
What is certified is the register on the day the copy bears. Where a Certified Map, Instrument Copy or standard Folio Search is also wanted for the same Dalkey property, order them at the same time.
It reflects the register as at the certification date shown, and dealings lodged later are not included. Where the copy supports a completion or a drawdown, order it near the day of use rather than at the beginning of the transaction.
Through the post, as a certified hard copy carrying the Property Registration Authority's seal. That seal is exactly why lenders and court offices accept it, so the document cannot usefully be supplied in electronic form.
The filed plan governs, since the registered extent it shows is what the register actually recognises. In Dalkey, where boundaries often follow quarried rock and walls have been rebuilt over the years, discrepancies are common and valuable. A Certified Map should be obtained before an offer rather than after a dispute begins.
Only if it appears in Part III. Routes to Coliemore, Bulloch and the bathing places have been used for generations without always having been granted, and long usage does not by itself create a registered right. The certified folio is where you find out which applies.
Yes. Executors administering an estate that includes Dalkey property use one as formal evidence of the deceased's registered ownership for the Probate Office and for financial institutions. To order your Certified Folio for Dalkey, use the order link on this page.
They are rights of way and access arrangements created when granite was worked on the hill and moved down towards the coast. They can remain registered long after the workings closed, and the instrument behind the entry rather than the folio determines what survives and who may exercise it.
· Delivered in · Certified hard copy by post
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