This year, we are launching Caseworkers’ Top 10 tips for tip-top applications - quick checks or changes you can make that could more than halve the number of requisitions you receive.
In 2023, we raised 986,036 requisitions, 70% of which (695,380) boiled down to around 30 specific points. None involved a certificate or consent, but collectively they took us – and more importantly you, our customers – a huge amount of time and money to resolve.
Our caseworkers have put together 10 top tips to address some of the most common requisitions – simple points that punch above their weight in terms of delaying applications, but which are quick and easy to eliminate. Caseworkers say that if you follow these 10 top tips, you will avoid more than 20 very common requisition points.
We’ve assembled the 10 top tips into a collection of short, snappy videos and made them available on YouTube, as well as our Customer Training and HM Land Registry Essentials hubs. We will also be posting them on our social channels at regular intervals. And you are, of course, welcome to download any or all of them to use in your own in-house training.
We recognise, appreciate and value the excellent work many of our customers are putting in to submit clear, correct and complete applications – you can read more about this in our series of case studies on GOV.UK.
And while some of the tips might seem very basic – even obvious – we send a huge number of requisitions over these points. In 2023, we sent more than 84,000 in relation to missing information alone.
We are also keenly aware that what all of you, our customers, want from us more than anything else is better speed of service and an end to backlogs. We want this, too. And while of course we realise that reducing requisitions will not fix these issues, it will help.
This is a shared responsibility: we know we send requisitions that could have been avoided, and we are working hard to stop this happening. So, as you might expect, Top 10 tips are just one of many initiatives we’re introducing to tackle requisitions overall, which also include:
Among the improvements we’re focusing on to help customers - and especially staff new to conveyancing and post-completion teams, are:
Finally, our Top 10 tips don’t cover everything – after all, there are more than 1,500 standard requisition points – and they’re not designed for debating the nuances of land law. But they do include the simple points we see over and again. Getting those right first time will certainly save you plenty of time, money and frustration.
So, look out for our top 10 and, if you have any tried and tested tips to avoid a requisition, let us know. Wherever possible, we’ll share them, too.
You can find the tips on GOV.UK
General help in avoiding requisitions:
Guidance:
Webinars:
How to avoid requests for information
Checklist:
We welcome your comments about this blog in the comments below. Please note that we are unable to discuss individual cases through the comments section and would request that all such queries be directed to our Contact Us web form where you will receive a response as soon as possible.
As mentioned in our recent blogs, about what we’re doing to reduce our processing times and our plans for the future, we are exploring every avenue to improve our services to customers. This includes automating our services for updating registered titles, which makes up the majority of the work handled by our caseworkers.
To automate our services, we need to adjust how we receive and process applications. At the moment, our caseworkers check every application for errors or omissions before starting work on them. They often need to send out requests for information (requisitions). It’s essential to the integrity of the land register that these details are correct on the application. We need to remove this time-consuming step if we want faster, automated services.
We believe that most of the checks our caseworkers currently perform manually could be replaced, either because our digital applications services check the register before the application is submitted or because our application processing tools can check it once it’s been received. However, we also need assurance from customers – notably from those regulated lawyers or 'Regulated Legal Professionals' (RLPs) – on some other aspects. You may have heard this process referred to as 'Lawyer Assured Information' (LAI). For more on how this could help with our automation ambitions, please see our previous blog on ‘efficient land registration’.
We can only do this in partnership with industry – we need to know how different conveyancers work and how we could effectively change the way we all work. So, we’ve started with four high-volume firms: Enact, Eversheds Sutherland, Optima and O’Neill Patient. We have been working with these four firms because their high volumes provided enough example cases for us to quickly understand how things could work. We’ve been focussing on applications to register new charges, because they’re relatively simple to register, and they make up a sizable proportion of our work.
Through this initial pilot stage, we’ve learned a lot – both in terms of what works and what doesn’t – and we’ve seen some real benefits. As Claire Feehily-Loy from O’Neill Patient, a Movera company, has told us:
Our involvement with LAI was driven by the prospect of enhanced automation and quicker turn-around times for registration applications. The benefits we've experienced at O'Neill Patient, and our platform business Movera, have exceeded expectations.
Karen Hooper noted that Enact saw the same potential.
We were really keen to be involved with the LAI project given that increased automation and quicker registrations will ultimately be of significant benefit not only for our business, but also for our clients and customers.
If we’re going to automate more applications, we need to be confident that firms are not submitting applications with errors or omissions in them. We’re really looking at the avoidable, administrative errors, rather than things like third party consents which we all know take time to gather. And we’re really focussing on the more ‘serious’ of these, such as the signing of a deed or inclusion of the correct deed.
Claire Feehily-Loy again.
We receive thorough feedback and data on requisitions, enabling us to make significant improvements to our internal processes. Not only that, but we have been able to work closely with HMLR to shape the future of the process.
By working closely with all four firms we’ve seen a notable reduction in their requisition rates. And we’ve learned about some issues in our own policy that we could amend, including some technical aspects of how customers submit applications that inevitably lead to requisitions, and how these could be avoided.
Karen Hooper from Enact felt the same.
During the pilot, the ongoing feedback and iterative development discussions have proved to be invaluable in refining our internal processes, leading to faster registrations and even lower requisitions than usual.
When initially discussing this work, we were aware of concerns that it would allow firms to edit the land register unchecked. This will absolutely not happen; it is still HM Land Registry’s responsibility to decide what can and can’t be registered. We will not allow applications which do not pass fundamental ‘business rules’ – things which our caseworkers currently check for – to be added to the register.
The pilot – or ‘private beta’ - has allowed us to examine and test how we can best do this, through pre-registration checks and/or post-registration assurance processes. The details of how we do this are still being developed, but this principle remains central to our work.
By working with these high-volume firms, we have been able to explore some of the barriers they face, both legal and operational. Through regular discussions, we’ve learned in-depth detail of how they handle cases, and how we can work together to provide accurate applications while addressing anything that regularly leads to requisitions. We will now include a broader range of firms of different sizes, handling different amounts of cases, to ensure our approach works for everyone.
One notable change made after feedback is that our approach would leave it up to the individual RLP to choose how they obtain the confidence to assure their firm’s applications. This may, for example, be by checking each individual application. Or alternatively they may only need to check a sample of their firm’s applications, as they have enough confidence in the processes and assurance checks in place. Any steps taken by the RLP must give them a reasonable belief that each application being submitted to HM Land Registry is true and accurate.
And we’ve been able to address concerns, such as around the perceived shifting of liability. It is not our intention to change the relationship between HM Land Registry and our customers. This will not put any increased risk on personal financial liability on those assuring us of the applications’ quality, nor do we see any change in PI insurance.
We’ve also explored what training customers will need. While we’ve had the luxury of working directly with the four firms involved in the private beta, we have learned a lot about what guidance and support will need to be available when we open the work out to more firms.
On a more fundamental level, we’ve also learned how to make this work practically. How different customers submit applications to HM Land Registry, how they could technically provide assurance of each applications’ quality, and how this assurance is ‘stored’ within HM Land Registry. These more functional aspects are fundamental to this working in future, so we will continue to work with these firms and test our approach with a broader range of customers.
Claire Feehily-Loy noted that:
We acknowledge the challenges of aligning the role of Regulated Legal Professionals (RLPs) with our Movera powered automation and controlled processes, and we are actively collaborating with HMLR to find an optimal solution.
Karen Hooper agreed that this concept was also “not without its challenges” for Enact but went on to say:
We have been able to work collaboratively with HMLR on this point and have every confidence a mutually agreeable solution will be forthcoming based on our experience to date.
We are now reflecting on the feedback from the firms involved in this private beta and are bringing in a few more firms with different application types and volumes to advise on how this would work for them.
We do believe that automation is the future of land registration, bringing both faster and more sustainable services. This has been proven with our information services, which were largely immune to the recent fluctuation in the property market activity.
While we don’t imagine this will be available to all firms in the short term, we will continue to share information about our work as we gain more detail.
Please sign up for our early engagement group if you would like to receive direct emails around this work or become involved in upcoming research.
]]>Today (7 December) is Welsh Language Rights Day, an event organised by the Welsh Language Commissioner that gives organisations such as us an opportunity to promote our Welsh language services.
The theme of this year’s campaign is ‘Defnyddia dy Gymraeg’ or ‘Use your Welsh’. If you’re a Welsh speaker or learner, go ahead and use your Welsh with us!
HM Land Registry’s Welsh Language Scheme ensures we treat the English and Welsh languages equally. We are committed to making sure solicitors and members of the public can communicate with us in Welsh, if they choose to.
We have a dedicated team of caseworkers who are fluent in Welsh and who welcome correspondence and applications submitted in the language.
Applications or correspondence in Welsh can be emailed directly to our Welsh language team at: GwasanaethCymraeg@landregistry.gov.uk
Here’s a short video about the service offered by our Welsh language team.
The register template of every title in Wales is produced in bilingual format. The headings and standard information appear in English and Welsh, and the register entries appear in the language of the document on which they are based.
The following services on GOV.UK are available in Welsh:
Search for land and property information
Search for local land charges on land and property
We have a Welsh language line for general enquiries: 0300 006 0422. Anyone who receives correspondence or notices in English can request a version in Welsh if they prefer.
A Welsh version of LLC Maintain, which enables local and other authorities to register new local land charges and amend existing charges in our register, is also available.
Many of HM Land Registry’s pages on GOV.UK are available in Welsh. They include:
HM Land Registry statutory forms
HM Land Registry practice guides
Information about HM Land Registry fees
Monthly UK House Price Index reports
Information on the Local Land Charges Programme
Our HM Land Registry glossary of legal terms has been useful to solicitors and members of the public who correspond with us in Welsh.
You can view other GOV.UK pages available in Welsh by selecting the ‘Cymraeg’ tab located in the top right-hand corner of the page.
Our aim is to continue to further the commitments in our Welsh Language Scheme to ensure our services take account of Welsh-language requirements where appropriate.
Providing services in Welsh is important, but Welsh speakers need to use them to demonstrate their value.
You can help spread the word by informing your colleagues and clients of these services and encouraging their use.
More information about HM Land Registry’s Welsh language services is available on GOV.UK.
We welcome your comments about this blog in the comments below. Please note that we are unable to discuss individual cases through the comments section and would request that all such queries be directed to our Contact Us web form where you will receive a response as soon as possible.
This week sees the return of International Fraud Awareness Week, launched in 2000 by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, when hundreds of organisations across the world come together to raise awareness and encourage people to guard against fraud.
Fraud costs the UK nearly £7 billion a year, accounting for more than 40% of crime, so earlier this year the Government launched a new Fraud Strategy, introducing a range of measures aimed at driving this figure down.
At HM Land Registry we work hard to combat property fraud, which happens when criminals target the most vulnerable properties or property owners in our society.
This type of fraud can deprive people of their homes, lose them hundreds of thousands of pounds and have a seriously detrimental impact on their lives, often before they realise what is happening.
When a criminal steals a property owner's identity and uses it to make an application to HM Land Registry to register, for example, a forged transfer or mortgage deed, this is officially known as ‘registered title fraud’.
Over the past five years, HM Land Registry has prevented registered title fraud against more than £100 million of property, through a combination of detection, prevention and education.
However, fraudsters targeting the properties of both individuals and companies continue to pose a threat to property owners and conveyancers, as they look to exploit any real or perceived weakness in the system.
It is worth remembering, too, that fraud methods vary and continually evolve, so we all need to be vigilant and look out for anything that seems unusual or suspicious.
If a registered title fraud has been committed, the Land Registration Act 2002 sets out when a mistake in the register can be put right, and when it cannot.
This is underpinned by a scheme to compensate those who suffer loss because of a mistake in the register, whether or not it is corrected.
Depending on the circumstances, the defrauded proprietor may not regain ownership of the property, so prevention should always be the number one priority.
Owners can apply to enter a ‘Form LL restriction’ in the property title register. This is designed to help prevent the type of fraud where a fraudster obtains identity documents in the registered property owner’s name and then uses them to persuade a buyer or lender that they are the true owner of the property.
Typically, they might be a tenant with access to the property or some other trusted person.
To sell or mortgage the property, the fraudster has to obtain a certificate from a conveyancer in order to comply with the Form LL restriction in the register.
The Form LL restriction can deter fraudsters from targeting a property because they will first have to convince the conveyancer that they are indeed the true owners.
It is not a mandatory requirement when you buy a property, and your legal advisor may or may not raise it with you during the conveyancing process, but if you have this restriction in place, you could stop a fraudster from selling your property without your knowledge.
However, you should also be aware that having this restriction in your register can slow down the process of selling, leasing or mortgaging your property because you’ll need to address extra steps, which can take some time to resolve.
Find out more at property fraud - HM Land Registry (blog.gov.uk) or watch our video, Form LL – the 'counter-fraud' restriction.
Property Alert is another preventative measure you can take which is well worth considering.
HM Land Registry’s Property Alert service currently has more than 1.25 million active alerts protecting properties across England and Wales and giving their owners greater peace of mind.
By signing up for this free service, you will be notified of certain types of activity on the register in relation to your property, which you can rapidly respond to if necessary.
You don’t have to be the property owner to set up an alert; you might want to keep an eye on a friend or relative’s house, or simply want to know if someone is interested in buying it. And it is not limited to just one address: you can monitor up to 10 properties.
It takes just a few minutes to set up an account. Sign up at Property Alert service and enter the required details. You’ll find some great pointers here: 5 top tips to keep your property safe.
For anyone who thinks they may have been the victim of property fraud, HM Land Registry operates a dedicated property fraud line for you to report any concerns. Please call us on 0300 006 7030 (Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm).
So why not sign up to our Property Alert service during Fraud Awareness Week and help protect your property?
]]>If you’ve just bought a property and you look at Zoopla or Rightmove – or even HM Land Registry's own service – you may be surprised to see that your name and the price paid hasn’t been added to your official property record yet. In the vast majority of cases, you do not need to worry about this. There are a few specific cases (explained below), where HM Land Registry registrations could potentially cause owners an issue but, even then, there is a simple – and free – solution available.
Normally, no problems arise from properties not being registered to their new owners yet. This is because registration happens after the property is sold – usually after completion and collection of the keys, and after Stamp Duty or Land Transaction Tax (if applicable) has been paid. The sale is legal, the new owner can move in, and the property is theirs. Their legal rights are protected in the Land Register the moment we receive the new application, not from the day we actually register it which will be some time later because the sale needs to happen first.
HM Land Registry plays a key role in the property market, providing an official record of all property ownership and the financial loans (normally mortgages) against all property in England and Wales. This provides assurance for further money lending, and so keeps the property market running. Without this, the property market would simply stop.
Most people probably don’t even know about HM Land Registry until they see the line on their conveyancer’s itemised bill. Or possibly when they receive a form to sign, with witnesses, to agree to the sale of the property with our logo at the top. They may also use platforms such as Rightmove but not realise the data’s sourced from us.
Before a property is sold, we provide information about the ownership of that property. We currently provide that information within three working days, mainly because this service is largely automated.
After a property sale, we register the new owners’ details and any mortgage they have. The sale is legal, the new owner can move in, host house-warming parties or start any renovations they want. The property is legally theirs from the moment we receive the application which we will then start processing.
To see the current timescales for processing applications, you can check our current processing times on GOV.UK. It’s worth repeating that the owners’ ‘interest’ in the property is legally protected from the moment we receive the application, not the later date when we finish processing it and update the register.
There are a few specific cases where HM Land Registry registrations could potentially cause owners an issue but, even then, there is a simple – and free – solution available: our fast-track service.
If someone buys a property and then decides to remortgage or sell it just a short while later, their registration may not have been completed yet, meaning they cannot sell or remortgage the property. This does not happen very often but, when it does, the applicant can request that their application is fast tracked and moved to the front of our queues (we call this 'expediting'). This is an extremely successful service, with over 95% of cases processed within 10 working days allowing them to continue with their sale or remortgage. It is also free of charge.
The other area which can potentially cause issues is registering a property for the first time – perhaps if it’s an old house or part of a new build development. We’re seeing some longer registration delays here, as these tend to be more complex applications that require more detailed mapping and often need us to ask applicants for more details to ensure we get the precise aspects of ownership correct. In fact, two thirds of these ‘complex’ applications need some clarifying, which can cause delays.
So, if you have bought an older house, or a new build, and are thinking about refinancing or remortgaging, it would be worth checking the registration details and, if necessary, requesting our fast-track service to bring our records up to date with your ownership.
So, if a delay in registration is causing problems, whether legal, financial or personal, our criteria for fast tracking are met. Remember, there is no additional charge from HM Land Registry to use this service – it is free.
This is a simplified account of our work. Land registration and property law can be incredibly complex. However, it covers the vast majority of property sales. Inevitably, there will be some cases which take a little longer, or face particular issues. If you have any concerns about these affecting you, we would encourage you to contact us.
There is no reason that your property transaction should be affected by any processing delays at HM Land Registry.
However, if you think your plans might be affected by your property not being registered yet, please request an expedite. This free service is helping thousands of people each month to do things such as move home, change their registered names after marriage or divorce, or manage a property after a bereavement.
As long as the application has been submitted to us, any delays in registering the property aren’t anything to worry about. This doesn’t mean however that we’re not always working to reduce the time between receiving an application and registration.
For more information about what we’re doing to improve our speed of service for customers, including hiring over 1,500 new caseworkers, please read our recent blog on measures to help our customers.
If you’re interested in learning more about our role in the conveyancing process, you can also watch our recently published video aimed at supporting new conveyancers.
]]>Our priority at the moment is to reduce the time taken to register changes in ownership. Our expedite service helps us to prioritise your urgent work, but we know how our processing times are impacting conveyancers.
However, this is not a new problem for us or for other land registries. Whenever there has been a housing market bubble, we have to quickly process more cases. While we can hire more people it takes time to train them up.
Some other land registries have worked with their markets to find a more efficient and resilient digital approach. We have developed an approach to do away with these cyclical strains, based on these countries’ success. We are determined that this will be the last time this happens.
Most of the applications we receive are to register simple changes in ownership and mortgages. The great majority of these cases can be automated – processed immediately upon submission, without any requisitions (further questions on the application).
All other ownership changes would also be more efficiently processed, just with greatly reduced requisitions. Maybe none at all.
Our caseworkers who currently work on these simpler cases could then join those working on our more ‘complex’ cases, such as first registrations or new leases. So they would also be processed more quickly.
The benefits will be stark, post-completion admin will be greatly reduced for everyone and the history of speed of service problems once every decade or so will be at an end.
We’ve already seen this with our information services. We automated most of them years ago and they were barely impacted by the surge in market activity of the last few years.
Working together we can start to feel those benefits across the rest of our services quite quickly, particularly if we look at the system overall and not just our individual part in it.
And I am confident we can do this because of the comparable examples elsewhere in the world, such as in Australia, Canada and parts of Europe. In New Zealand they were able to eliminate all but the most technical of requisitions, moving to instantaneous processing of 87% of previously manual cases. There are obviously differences in property law between here and there, but not that make a material difference to the opportunity to improve the process.
In general principle, a land registration decision is quite simple. We need to know a number of facts about a property transaction. Get those facts straight, then, in most cases, the registration decision is routine – formulaic – and therefore capable of automation.
The hard bit is getting the facts straight. Or is it?
As a one-time property lawyer, I know how careful everyone is in getting the facts straight for completion day. Does the transfer say all the right things; has it been properly executed; have restrictions been met; has everyone been properly identified; can the money be handed over, and so on? There is a lot of effort in getting to that confident clarity that all can go ahead.
If all those ‘completion facts’ can simply be taken and transmitted reliably to HM Land Registry then so much becomes easier and faster for everyone. That’s the aim.
What we currently do is add in steps to that transmission: an application process; attaching deeds that also describe the transaction; requisitions; handling by different people. This leads to the possibility of gaps, inconsistencies, errors, loss of complete confidence, duplicated effort and wasted time and cost.
We are going to bridge that gap in a number of ways.
First, we are going to redouble our efforts to eradicate the simple errors – the admin slips. We all make minor mistakes sometimes.
Our application systems can check certain things against both the register and what is written in the transfer or mortgage. We are already seeing a huge reduction in some errors through our Digital Registration Service on the HM Land Registry portal. Our internal systems – our application processing engine – will check other elements against the register, in much the same way caseworkers currently do.
And we can improve our help to applicants. We are working through our registration requirements, so they are no more and no less than what is required for efficient and secure land ownership in a digital age. We also plan to make our guidance more accessible to everyone so that it is able to respond to your particular question in the moment.
Second, we need assurance that the ‘completion facts’ that our systems cannot validate are correct. The sort of confirmation can only come from those who know – those who were worrying about just those things at completion.
Being given that assurance by a regulated professional means we don’t have to double up in checking those things ourselves. It is not a change in the roles of the conveyancer and HM Land Registry. They tell us what happened and HM Land Registry decides how to register the transaction. It is just the most effective way of putting HM Land Registry in the position to make a secure decision, without an unnecessary to-and-fro.
We know that this assurance process will only be a success if the new system works for conveyancers and the tech companies that support them. So we have been working in a pilot with a few high-volume firms: Enact, Eversheds Sutherland, Optima and O’Neill Patient. Thanks to them we have learned a lot about what would work and what might not work, and we’ve taken all their feedback on board as we continue to design the process whilst working with the grain of conveyancing practice. We’ll bring you more on that in another blog post soon, including on how lawyers and PropTech (property technology) businesses can get involved in its development as we continue and expand our tests.
This is the future of land registration, as it has been in those other countries. Doing it well in England and Wales will take patient collaboration between HM Land Registry and its customers.
With your help we can create something that benefits all property owners and lenders – a system fit for one of the world’s most valuable and important property markets.
]]>Conveyo is currently a participant in the Geovation Accelerator Programme – a programme backed by HM Land Registry and Ordnance Survey which provides geospatial and property technology (PropTech) start-ups with grant funding and 12 months of support.
Conveyo prepares properties to be legally ready before listing, making home sales more certain and efficient.
I founded Conveyo in 2022 with data scientist Andrea Monti Solza. Our objective was to help home movers sell without hassle and buy with confidence.
As a property lawyer, I've been through the nitty-gritty of property transactions myself. It became clear to me that there had to be a smarter way to handle things by blending legal know-how with technology.
At Conveyo, we believe technology, in particular data-driven conveyancing, will play a crucial role for property transactions going forward. However, while some firms already embrace technology in some way, others still operate manually or on paper. The reality is that these manual workflows consume valuable time and erode hourly rates, potentially compromising the competitive edge of these firms.
Conveyo ensures frictionless property transactions by collecting all required data early in the process and sharing it with stakeholders through its digital conveyancing platform. For customers, Conveyo offers a tailored concierge service around their transaction. Often, home sales are not easily accessible to individuals, leaving them unsure what to do and who to trust. Conveyo steps in as their trusted partner guiding sellers and buyers towards a seamless transaction.
Through its network, Conveyo helps customers to find the best-fit estate agent and solicitors for their transaction. Beyond that matchmaking, Conveyo coordinates the entire transaction, handles the legal workstream and provides automated communications between all parties, making sure everyone is on the same page without the need for update calls.
With Conveyo, everybody wins - sellers and buyers transact without hassle and with more confidence while solicitors save time and increase their profitability.
Conveyo’s digital conveyancing platform sources data from over 100 data points, incorporating data from HM Land Registry and Ordnance Survey. These datasets include HM Land Registry’s local land charges, restrictive covenants, registered leases and price paid information. Together with Ordnance Survey’s address base, we can paint a comprehensive picture about the property and its surroundings.
At Conveyo, we believe that the more accessible property data becomes, the better use can be made of it, empowering a data-driven property market.
The experience we have gained in Geovation has been incredibly valuable so far. It has provided us with access to a network of experts and like-minded individuals who understand our business and are helping us turn our vision into reality.
Geovation also provides us with exposure to potential customers, investors, and collaborators within the PropTech sector, allowing us to expand our network and pursue new market opportunities. Being part of the Geovation Accelerator Programme is a validation of our approach to improving the house buying and selling process.
We are actively exploring the integration of artificial intelligence into our platform, which aims to further foster collaboration among consumers, estate agents and conveyancers. We are particularly excited about HM Land Registry’s efforts to transform Local Land Charges (LLC) information, as it forms part of our service. More importantly, we are keen to have a complete digital LLC register because it will greatly support well-informed and efficient property transactions, making home buying faster and more affordable.
We want to help estate agents and conveyancers by offering a gateway that leverages technology, allowing them to unlock invaluable time efficiencies.
Against this backdrop, we are working on increasing our capacity to process larger transaction volumes by expanding our technology and team.
If you’re interested in finding out more, visit www.conveyo.io
]]>Earlier this month we published our latest Annual Report, noting the progress we’ve made in the last year since the publication of our Strategy 2022+.
HM Land Registry’s absolute focus is on ensuring the property market continues to operate smoothly. We have supported millions of property transactions over the last few years. Last financial year alone we processed almost four and a half million updates to the register, and created almost half a million new titles. Some of our post-completion services are, though, falling below customers’ expectations. We are determined to improve our processing times as fast as we can.
All of our teams’ efforts are focused on reducing the longest service times for ownership changes, as well as building a stronger, sustainable land registration process for the future.
We are aiming to reach a position in spring 2024 of having no applications older than 12 months.
To achieve this, we are recruiting more people than ever before. We have welcomed more than 2,000 new colleagues in the last three years (including 1,500 caseworkers and nearly 100 digital specialists), with over 33% of our current workforce having joined us during that time. This offers obvious opportunities, but it also places demands on the organisation in terms of training and building experience.
We have developed a new Land Registration Academy to train our staff, and delivered courses to over 1,700 colleagues since 2021-22. This has ensured that our workforce is as robust and flexible as it can be.
We are working relentlessly across our all systems, structures and processes to find new efficiencies and improve the service to customers. This includes having colleagues specifically focused on tackling some of the oldest and most complex cases that customers have been waiting for.
We are already seeing an improvement. Last financial year saw a 12% increase in output in compared with 2021-22. We should continue to increase our output levels from there.
We understand that customers may not be feeling the impact of that quite yet in all casework types. And for this we apologise. We believe you will, though, soon start noticing this improvement in all our service speeds.
We know our customers need additional support at the moment. Our customer support teams respond to more than 5,000 enquiries a day. We are exploring a number of improvements to our contact channels and to how we can keep our professional customers and members of the public up to date as their applications progress. This includes developing a new way for lenders to check digitally the status of their mortgage registration. This is expected to reduce the time spent by conveyancers updating on applications.
We have also recently launched our Specialist Support Services hub, which brings together all our pre-submission services in one place. Customers who submit complex, large-scale applications can now access expert help and support before they submit their applications.
We find we need to send out more requests for information (requisitions) on complex application types – with around 65% of complex cases needing further information, compared to 20% across all application – so resolving these issues before submission can save a significant amount of time.
We’re doing a lot of work in this area, including the further evolution of our digital application services, which are seeing large reductions in requisitions by automatically checking application data before submission.
We have also set up a training hub to make it easier to find guidance on GOV.UK and have launched a new ‘HM Land Registry Essentials’ hub for recent recruits to conveyancing and post-completion teams, or those needing a refresher.
On top of this, we crossed the first major milestone in our digital transformation last November, when we went ‘digital by default’ for all incoming applications. Over 90% of applications are now received ‘digitally’. To support this, we also launched a new look portal homepage, the first change in design it’s had since it was launched in 2009.
We recently extended the fee calculator in our Digital Registration Service in the portal, covering leases and transfer of part. In May we further improved our View Applications feature, allowing customers to filter, and see flags against, applications with outstanding requisitions.
And we're enhancing the ways in which legal software can connect to our services via our Business Gateway application programming interfaces (APIs). Having recently introduced the ability to include an Estimated Completion Date for applications we will soon increase validation on incoming applications – providing additional checks on fees, dates and other details.
You can see all of our recent – and upcoming – changes to our digital services on our Digital Services Roadmap page on GOV.UK.
While supporting the market through the delivery of our ‘core function’ remains our main priority, we are making great progress toward the digital future of land registration. Our application processing engine is already helping to process some of our simplest applications, and we’ve made huge leaps in converting our paper and electronic register to our digital register.
More detail on all of our work this last year can be found in our annual report, and an upcoming blog will explore our vision of the future in more detail.
]]>In summer 2020 we published our groundbreaking electronic signature practice. This offered a convenient and secure alternative to wet-ink signatures for deeds and documents relating to property transactions, removing the last requirement for a wet-ink signature.
This was followed in 2021 with the launch of our Digital Identity Standard. The standard outlined the four requirements for digital identity tools for use in land registration purposes. This standard was written to a level of assurance that, if met, the conveyancer would be protected in the event that their client was not who they claimed to be, as HM Land Registry would not exercise its rights of recourse.
While the initiatives were vital during the pandemic, we were also looking to the future and the enabling of secure and convenient digital land and property transactions. We have always envisioned digital identity and electronic signatures, along with digital, machine-readable data as critical to this objective.
It is clear that the market is starting to use these tools and embracing the security and convenience they afford. We are seeing more firms using electronic signing platforms and conveyancer-certified electronic signatures; the benefits of quicker circulation of documents, less reliance on the postal system and a reduction in administrative tasks seen as just some of the key benefits of electronic signing. InfoTrack’s 2022 Digital Conveyancing Maturity Index found that 66% of firms used digital identity and 78% have electronic signature solutions in place.
To maximise the impact of this opportunity, we need to move away from viewing identity and electronic signatures as separate solutions with different outcomes. The security of an electronic signature comes from the technology that supports it, and, importantly, the standard of identity verification it is based.
Digital identity and electronic signing tools are not always connected, so conveyancers may have to use one app for an identity check and another for the electronic signature. This is clearly not ideal for property transactions where ease of use and costs are important. Uniformity of approach to e-signing and online identity verification is seen as an outcome to work towards, as outlined in the recent Industry Working Group final report.
That’s the opportunity that Qualified Electronic Signatures (QES) offer which we are currently testing through the pilot we wrote about previously. Hugh James solicitors are early adopters, having completed the first QES transaction lodged at HM Land Registry (HMLR):
At Hugh James, we take pride in the role we have played in the HMLR pilot which enabled our clients to successfully complete the UK’s first-ever residential and first-ever commercial transaction using the revolutionary Qualified Electronic Signature. In collaboration with HMLR, we welcomed the opportunity to be at the forefront of this innovative step-change in the industry and continue to see the benefits of QES, providing our clients with an invaluable option for future property transactions, speeding up and simplifying land transactions, while aligning with our sustainability goals.
Due to growing interest in QES, last month we extended the scope of the pilot to include some categories of mortgages.
We recently attended the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF) adoption sprint for the property sector, and were encouraged by the appetite to adopt, within a regulated framework reusable identities and the credibility provided by the HM Land Registry digital identity standard, and the role that could play in adoption.
So, what’s the future? We’re starting to see glimpses of enhancements linking digital identity verification and electronic signatures within the same tools, and it’s really encouraging. This is expected to lead towards the neat packaging of a certified provider, offering a trusted and reusable identity, held on a device in a digital wallet with QES signing functionality – all for a reasonable cost. So, what could that mean for conveyancers and their clients?
It could lead to a certified identity, to an agreed standard, which is also compliant with both HM Land Registry and Anti-Money Laundering standards. Ideally these could be re-used and relied upon by multiple parties in the transaction under trust framework principles; from estate agent to mortgage broker, through to lender and conveyancer, thereby eliminating the need for a party to a property transaction to prove their identity several times with each stage of the transaction
It could also deliver the ability to sign documents using a very secure digital signature without the need for witnessing, using the same digital tool, included in the same price.
And then? We hope we can move away from electronic documents and towards the signing of data that can be read and validated instantly by HM Land Registry and other parties such as conveyancers. All of this plays an important part in our view of a simpler, quicker property market; one where property is bought and sold entirely digitally.
For more guidance on how to use electronic signatures now, you can watch our latest webinar. We would also welcome any feedback you have on the use of electronic signature tools, or on our practice, to help inform our ongoing work in this area.
]]>A restriction in the property title register limits the owner’s ability to deal with the property. For example, depending on the wording, it might prevent the owner from selling, leasing, mortgaging or remortgaging the property without taking further action.
There are different types, or forms, of restriction. Form LL is often referred to as the 'counter-fraud' restriction.
For many people, property is their most valuable asset and they want to protect it. There are a few ways to do this and, depending on the circumstances, sometimes conveyancers recommend applying to enter a Form LL restriction against the property.
Organised criminals often target the most vulnerable properties or property owners. If you're living or working away from home, for example, or it's empty for a while, sometimes fraudsters can impersonate the registered owner and sell or mortgage the property without your knowledge.
So, a Form LL could be worth considering if you’re a landlord, you don’t live in your property or if it’s likely to be left empty for any period of time. If you’re in such a category and you add this restriction to your property register, it might make your property a less tempting target for fraud.
But, having this restriction in your register can cause delays in the process of selling, leasing or mortgaging your property because, as we’ve said, you’ll need to address additional hurdles, which can take time to resolve. You might want to consider other measures instead - see below.
A Form LL restriction is designed to help prevent the type of fraud in which a swindler obtains identity documents in the name of the registered property owner, and uses them to persuade a buyer or lender that they are the true owner of the property. This could be a tenant with access to it, or another party.
The restriction reads: "No disposition of the registered estate by the proprietor of the registered estate is to be registered without a certificate signed by a conveyancer that the conveyancer is satisfied that the person who executed the document submitted for registration as disponor is the same person as the proprietor."
To sell or mortgage the property, the fraudster has to obtain a certificate from a conveyancer to comply with the Form LL restriction in the register. It might be difficult to convince the conveyancer that they are the true owner, so the fraudster could be deterred from targeting the property.
In simple terms, it means that – like the fraudster - you'll need a professional conveyancer, such as a solicitor, to personally verify your identity before you (the owner) can mortgage or sell the property. You’ll need to obtain a certificate signed by a conveyancer to say that you, as the registered proprietor, have signed the transfer, lease or mortgage deed.
That isn’t necessarily a problem, but it can cause delay in the transaction process while you obtain the required certificate.
For greater peace of mind, you can sign up to HM Land Registry's free Property Alert service. Property Alert notifies you when there’s activity on the register in relation to the property so that you can address it if needs be.
If, after careful consideration, you've decided you want a Form LL restriction in your property title register, what next?
Although we recommend seeking legal advice, you don't need anyone to help you apply for the restriction. Head to GOV.UK for information about protecting your land and property from fraud, and for detailed guidance see HM Land Registry’s Practice Guide 19.
Fill in a request for a restriction if you’re a company owning property and send your application to the address on the form - there’s no fee.
Fill in a request for a restriction for owners not living at the property if you own the property privately – again there’s no fee.
Fill in an application for a restriction. It costs £40.
Send completed forms to HM Land Registry Citizen Centre, PO Box 74, Gloucester GL14 9BB.
We’ll tell you when we add the restriction.
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