IrishHomeTruths.com attempted to find out how much information was actually available on house prices sales. The following very helpful response neatly sums up the options.

FOI request for property sold prices.

Dear sir,

I refer to our telephone conversation yesterday and I hope that the following will clarify some of the issues discussed.

Regarding Freedom of Information, the position is as follows - the Property Registration Authority was established to take over the control and management of the Land Registry and Registry of Deeds.

As the process required to bring the Property Registration Authority under the remit of the Freedom of Information Act has not yet been completed, we are not in a position to deal with requests under the FOI Act at present – please see our website www.prai.ie for further details (the link to FOI is at the top of the home page).

However, many of our records are routinely available on payment of a fee outside of Freedom of Information legislation.

When a property is registered, details of that registration are shown on a folio document. The folio is a record of the property and will show details such as a description of the property, the current registered owner and any burdens affecting the property (e.g a mortgage). Folios are public documents and members of the public may inspect or request a certified copy of a folio on payment of the appropriate fee. There is a fee of €2.50 for an inspection, €6 for a certified copy of a folio and €25 for a certified copy folio with map attached.

Folio and map records are also available through our online service landdirect.ie – this is a subscription service which requires a login and password as well as an initial pre-payment of €125. Please see the website www.landdirect.ie for more details.

However, details such as the sale price of the property are not recorded on a folio. The sale price of a house is usually quoted in the Deed of Transfer, which would be lodged along with other documents and deeds as part of an application for registration.

When an application for registration is completed, the documents on which the registration is based are filed in this office as an Instrument. Instruments are not public records – access to an Instrument is governed by Rule 188 of the Land Registration Rules 1972.

Under Rule 188, the Registrar is prohibited from allowing access to the Instrument except in accordance with the Rule. I am attaching a copy of Rule 188 for your information. There is a fee of €6 for inspection and €25 for a certified copy of an Instrument.

Please note that there is no provision in the Rule to allow inspections for third parties who wish to ascertain the sale price of a house.

In relation to additional data that can be provided by the Property Registration Authority, the Annual Report provides figures relating to various activities of the Authority – the Annual Report for 2006 is available on our website under Publications and Annual Report 2007 will be available in the next few weeks.

While we cannot provide any data relating to the sale price of properties which are registered, we regularly provide on request information relating to number and type of applications processed by the PRA (e.g number of Transfer for Sale applications received/completed in 2007).

I hope that this information is of some assistance to you.

Best regards