CMA response to BIS consultation on the future of the Land Registry
Response to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) consultation on moving Land Registry operations to the private sector.
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The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has argued that public sector information, including property price data held by the Land Registry, has huge value to consumers and the economy when made widely available for re-use in apps, websites and other commercial products.
Government’s preferred option would create a privatised vertically-integrated business engaged in both monopoly and commercial activities. The CMA believes that as a result, the business may fail to maintain or improve access to its monopoly data, and may seek to weaken competition to its own commercial products, despite the best efforts of oversight bodies to regulate prices and impose safeguards.