Guidance

HM Land Registry requisitions

General advice for conveyancers on how to avoid requisitions.

From:
HM Land Registry
Published
7 October 2016
Last updated
14 April 2022 — See all updates

Applies to England and Wales

About requisitions

Sometimes, we are unable to complete a registration application because some of the information we need is missing, incomplete or wrongly drawn.

In these cases, we often raise a requisition – a formal request for the applicant to supply the information. If the applicant does not provide this information, we may end up cancelling their application.

Nearly 20% of registration applications require us to raise a requisition, but requisition rates vary widely between individual firms, up to 50% of applications in some cases.

The caseworkers who process the applications apply their judgement and decide whether a requisition is required. We have a thorough policy and guidelines, but land registration can be very complicated and one individual’s judgement may differ from another’s.

This means that sometimes a particular issue may or may not be able to be resolved without a requisition.

As well as the more complicated requisitions, we see many basic errors on applications, for which we always need to raise a requisition. For example, deeds not being executed properly or where names on the Register do not match the names on a transfer of land.

Nearly half of all requisitions could be avoided. Find out about the differences between avoidable and unavoidable requisitions.

In the time it takes to issue and resolve requisitions, we estimate that we could process thousands of registration applications in the course of a year. There is also the cost to you in responding to our requisitions.

If you are a land or property professional, you can work with us to help improve the speed of service you receive.

Follow our advice on this page to reduce the common errors and reduce the number of requisitions you receive. You can also find detailed advice and tips in practice guide 50: requisition and cancellation procedures.

How to avoid HM Land Registry requisitions

You can avoid requisitions by:

Checklists to help you avoid requisitions

Most of the applications we receive are to update or change the register of land that is already registered.

Use our checklist: applications for registered land

First registrations are often the most complicated registrations and have some of the highest requisition rates.

Use our checklist: application for first registration

Variations in names flowchart

Find out what action you need to take if there are variations in names of individuals between deeds, or between those deeds and the register. Use our flowchart to see how to resolve variations in names when lodging an application.

Variation in names flowchart

PDF, 1.44 MB, 1 page

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Lease extensions

Lease extensions also attract many requisitions.

Read about avoiding common requisitions for lease extensions in our blog.

Most common reasons for requisitions

If you are a land and property professional, watch our videos to help you avoid the most common reasons for requisitions. You may also want to use these as training materials within your firm:

Webinars

Join our free webinars to learn how to prepare and send us quality applications.

Updates to this page

Published 7 October 2016
Last updated 14 April 2022 + show all updates

  1. Update to the 'Variation in names flowchart' PDF.

  2. We've added a link to our new webinar page.

  3. Added 'Trusts of land – the creation and protection of interests' webinar.

  4. Added 'Trusts of land – the creation and protection of interests' and 'Pre-submission Enquiry and Application Management services' webinars.

  5. Latest webinar dates added.

  6. Updated the link for our variations in name webinar.

  7. Added new webinar: Leases – prescribed clauses and avoiding common errors. Added latest webinar dates.

  8. Identity requirements for substantive applications added.

  9. Latest webinar dates added.

  10. Added Discharges webinar

  11. Variation in names webinar added.

  12. A link to our 'how to avoid requisitions' playlist on YouTube has been added.

  13. New webinar dates added

  14. New webinar dates added

  15. New webinar information added.

  16. New webinar information and session links added.

  17. 'Variation in names flowchart' added to help conveyancers lodge applications.

  18. Information and dates about webinars for business customers added.

  19. First published.

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