New services from the Land Registry

Land iStock 000000070770XSmall 146x219Bill Chandler highlights several significant recent developments from the Land Registry which affect all local authority lawyers involved with land and property, whether dealing with residential properties or complex commercial premises.

The Land Registry seems to be in the news a lot these days, with controversial proposals surrounding local land charges and possible privatisation. The way that we engage with the Land Registry is also changing and it is important that local authority property teams are aware of these changes and are using them to best advantage.

Electronic Document Registration Service (eDRS)

eDRS allows an ever-increasing range of transfers, leases and other dispositions to be registered online. Originally only available to organisations with a full Network Access Agreement, eDRS is now available through the Portal. With a 50% fee discount recently introduced to encourage the use of eDRS rather than traditional paper applications, authorities who have not yet embraced eDRS should be considering it. You should however consider how best to implement eDRS in practice and ensure that suitably robust supervision is in place where applications are to be submitted by junior or unqualified staff.

Original documents

In the vast majority of cases, original documents should no longer be sent to the Land Registry. From 30 June, certified copies are now acceptable for all applications except first registrations, and any original documents sent with other types of application will be destroyed, even if accompanied by a certified copy. Another good reason for considering eDRS, perhaps?

MapSearch

Anyone with a Portal account now has access to the excellent MapSearch facility, which allows users direct (and free!) access to the Land Registry’s index map. If a guaranteed result is required then an official search of the index map should still be considered, but there will be many situations where the ability to quickly check for a title number or the extent of a registered title will be useful.

Property Alert

Property Alert allows private landowners to safeguard their properties from fraud by linking up to three registered titles to their email address. The landowner will then receive notification if an official search or a substantive application is lodged affecting those titles. Whilst not available to local authorities (unless anyone is sufficiently public spirited to monitor council property on their personal account), it is something we should all be considering for our own properties and it took me less than five minutes to set my account up.

Anti-fraud restrictions

Restrictions can be registered for free to protect the most vulnerable properties from fraud. Individuals may register restrictions in Form RQ for properties they own but do not live at, whilst companies may register standard form RQ(Co) against up to three titles. In each case, the restriction prevents the registration of a disposition without a certificate from a solicitor or other professional conveyancer that they have checked the identity of the person or company making the disposition. As with Property Alert, these free restrictions may be of limited use to local authorities (save where property is held in a corporate vehicle), but it may still be worth local authorities considering paying to register equivalent restrictions on vulnerable properties.

Further information on all these developments can be found on the Land Registry website.

Bill Chandler is a Legal Director at Hill Dickinson LLP. He can be contacted on 0151 600 8725 or by email.