Migration begins on HM Land Registry’s national Local Land Charges Register

HM Land Registry is building the foundations for a national Local Land Charges (LLC) Register and will over the coming year be working with 26 local authorities in England to migrate their LLC records to a centralised digital register, which will launch later this year and benefit up to 125,000 homebuyers in 2018/19.

The new digital register will eliminate regional variations in the speed, format and costs of LLC searches, a vital part of the property-buying process. Online search results will be available instantly in a range of formats to suit the customer.

Chief Executive and Chief Land Registrar Graham Farrant said:

“In today’s world, people expect to be able to access government information online quickly and easily, and for a reasonable fee.

“A national Local Land Charges service will achieve that.

“HM Land Registry has a track record for modernising land-related systems and is very pleased to be taking on the delivery of the national Local Land Charges digital register. This is a significant step forward in the Government’s ambition to make the house-buying process simpler, faster and cheaper.”

Most LLCs are restrictions or obligations such as listed status, tree preservation orders or notice of a conservation area. A search of these is normally required in the process of buying a home. Currently, each local authority maintains an LLC register for its administrative area and the records are held in a variety of formats such as paper, electronic and digital. Prices vary considerably, ranging from £3 to £76, and it can take up to 30 days to deliver the search results. This has led to an inconsistent service for customers depending on their postcode.

This first phase of migration will establish the foundations for the national Local Land Charges service and help HM Land Registry understand better how it can make further migration of more local authorities’ LLC records simpler and faster, while using the data more effectively.

HM Land Registry will be keeping customers up to date when each local authority’s LLC records are migrated to the new digital register and when search requests can be made using our centralised service.

Kindly shared by Land Registry