Stockton becomes first north-east council to join Local Land Charges Register

HM Land Registry’s digital Local Land Charges Register continues to grow with the inclusion of Stockton, enabling the digital transformation of homebuying.

From today (Wednesday 7 April), anyone requiring local land charges (LLC) searches in the local authority area of Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council will need to get them from HM Land Registry rather than going directly to the council.

Beccy Brown, Director of HR, Legal and Communications at Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, said:

“We are pleased to be the first local authority in North East England to migrate our local land charges register to HM Land Registry. The migration has provided an opportunity to make our processes more efficient, improve the quality of our data and modernise the service, so that we can improve the service for our residents and customers.”

Mark Kelso, Programme Director for HM Land Registry’s Local Land Charges Programme, said:

“Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council is the latest local authority to offer its customers access to HM Land Registry’s LLC Register. It is even more important at this time that public services can be accessed digitally and instantly and we are pleased to be able to contribute to that. We are working hard with local authorities like Stockton-on-Tees to ensure customers can obtain the information they need quickly, with Spelthorne Borough Council, Stratford-on-Avon District Council, Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council and Sevenoaks District Council joining the service over the next few months.”

Local land charges searches are normally required in the property-buying process. Most local land charges are restrictions or prohibitions on the use of the property such as planning permissions or listed buildings. The local land charges search will reveal whether a property is subject to a charge which then informs a buyer’s decision to buy a property or parcel of land.

HM Land Registry is working in partnership with local authorities to migrate their local land charges data to a central, digital register as part of a phased approach. Once migrated, anyone will be able to get instant online search results using the Search for local land charges service.

HM Land Registry’s business customers can use their existing portal and Business Gateway channels or their usual search providers to access local land charges data for those local authorities which have migrated.

Customers will need to continue to submit CON29 enquiries to the local authority.

For more information, read about the Local Land Charges Programme.

Kindly shared by HM Land Registry