Land Registry assurance check ‘will not shift liability on to conveyancers’

Land Registry assurance check ‘will not shift liability on to conveyancers’, according to a response by the organisation.

Automation work to speed up HM Land Registry applications by cutting down the number of checks that caseworkers have to do will not shift liability on to conveyancers, the organisation has insisted.

Land Registry has been piloting a ‘lawyer assured information’ process requiring legal professionals to provide assurance that their applications are true and accurate.

Being assured that certain ‘completion facts’ are correct means caseworkers do not then need to check the information. 

Roger Holdom, Land Registry’s market strategy lead, said:

“One notable change made after feedback is that our approach would leave it up to the individual RLP [regulated legal professional] 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.”

Holdom said Land Registry has also been learning how firms can technically provide assurance on each application’s quality and how that assurance is ‘stored’ within the organisation.

Kindly shared by The Law Society Gazette