Corporate report

Summary of non-qualifying regulatory provisions: 9 June 2017 to 20 June 2018

Updated 19 December 2022

Applies to England and Wales

Regulator: HM Land Registry

Business Impact Target reporting period covered: 9 June 2017 to 20 June 2018

Excluded category

Measures certified as being below de minimis (measures with an equivalent annual net direct cost to business (EANDCB) below +/- £5 million)

Summary of measure(s), including any impact data where available

HM Land Registry considers that all its changes fall within the de minimis exclusion. Analysis has been undertaken that evidences HM Land Registry’s changes are so significantly below this threshold that further analysis would be disproportionate.

In this reporting period HM Land Registry has:

• introduced a change in practice resulting in HM Land Registry contacting the mortgage lender applicant on more occasions where a discharge of whole is in paper form, allowing the lender to object to the application if they consider the discharge to be fraudulent
• simplified its practice in carrying forward easement entries on transfers and leases
• introduced the requirement for application fees to be automatically taken on the day of receipt of the application when sent through the HM Land Registry portal; a new mandatory field is presented which requires customers to reconfirm during submission the fee for the application (benefits to the customer will be that the fee will be consistently taken via direct debit on day one, removing inconsistency in service, and will reduce the need for the customers to contact HM Land Registry to enquire on progress)
• introduced the ability for business customers to lodge applications for historic copies of the title registers and title plans via the portal and for some customers to lodge large scale voluntary first registration applications electronically
• improved the functionality of its existing Application Enquiry service which business customers use to check details of any application
• undertaken activity related to policy development including:
  • looking at widening the rejection criteria for applications to create new freehold or leasehold titles (first registrations)
  • reviewing its policy and processing methods on management company restrictions, launching a survey in conjunction with the Conveyancing Association and the Law Society as part of an informal consultation to gather views on landlord and management company restrictions used to enforce covenants in leases
  • looking at changes in the way in which surrender and re-grant applications which extend the term and/or extent of a leasehold interest in a property are processed

HM Land Registry also made more than 130 updates to its practice guides to reflect changes in the law, practice and processing and to clarify requirements to support customers in making applications. It also introduced a new guide on overseas companies and limited liability partnerships and developed jointly with the Law Society new advice to help solicitors spot ever-evolving threats of fraud.

HM Land Registry has also undertaken some internal organisational reform which resulted in:

• all historical copy applications being sent to the Durham Office
• all customer requests now being handled by the Customer Support Centre; there is no longer the option to be allocated to a customer team
• the call handling improvement project aimed at improving customer service
• HM Land Registry being able to send the results of some first registration applications online

HM Land Registry has published news articles and revised other material in support of the changes and recently amended their forms to signpost external customers to its Personal Information Charter that was updated to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation.

All other excluded categories

Following consideration of the other exclusion categories there are no measures for the reporting period that qualify for the exclusions.