Avoidable requisition rates continue to see an overall fall following the publication of the latest data from HM Land Registry.
The data, covering April 2025 to September 2026, shows 75,581 “Applications with Fully Avoidable Requisitions” against a total number of 1,585,428 applications; an overall avoidable requisition rate of 4.7% compared with 4.9% the last time the data was published in June 2026.
Blogs accompanying the latest release highlight the progress made by both conveyancers, and HMLR in reducing the number of errors, which at one point was estimated to be costing the profession £19 million a year.
Avoidable requisitions arise from administrative errors that should, in most cases, be prevented through standard checks. Common examples include unexplained name discrepancies across documents, missing supporting paperwork, illegible uploads and execution anomalies.
In a recent Today’s Conveyancer podcast Andrew Robertson, Head of Customer Policy & Service Improvement at HMLR explained these are issues that add unnecessary delays to the registration process and create additional work for both conveyancers and HMLR. more positively he added the number of avoidable requisitions has fallen by at least 40% since 2022, and the rate of avoidable issues per 1,000 applications has almost halved.
“Avoidable requisition points fell year on year between 2022 and 2025. By 2025, we were raising 400,000 fewer per year than in 2022. Annual totals fell from 839,000 in 2022 to 439,000 in 2025 – a reduction of 47.7%. Application volumes also changed during the same period, but even after adjusting for this, the number of avoidable points relative to application intake fell by 39.1%. This shows that most of the improvement came from fewer avoidable points per application, rather than simply from a change in workload” said Robertson in a recent blog.
In time, more verification is being introduced by HMLR which will prevent inaccurate submissions; for now HMLR continues to work closely with firms and regulators to provide details on requisitions trends and potential areas of concern
The latest data showed 4,666 firms submitted applications to HMLR with O’Neill Patient, Enact Conveyancing, Optima Legal, Taylor Rose and Knights topping the list, between them submitting 13% of the overall number of applications. Their 6467 full avoidable requisitions represented 9% of the overall number of avoidable requisitions, at an avoidable requisition rate of 3.3% – below the overall industry average of 4.7%.
2,230 (48%) firms had avoidable requisition rate of 4.7% or below, a similar number to the previously published data. 16% of firms had no fully avoidable requisitions compared with 17% when the data was last published covering October 2025 to March 2026.
Of the 4,666 firms listed, 35 had requisitions rates of 20% or above. By volume, this accounts for 0.2% of total fully avoidable requisitions. By contrast, the top 10 firms with the highest avoidable requisitions numbers accounted for 12% of the overall number of avoidable requisitions.
Commenting on the latest data Robertson said: “Reducing avoidable requisitions is a shared achievement. Conveyancers, post-completion teams and industry bodies have worked with us to improve application quality, helping to reduce unnecessary work and delays for everyone involved.
“Our third dataset is an opportunity to build on that progress. We encourage firms to use their data to identify recurring issues and focus their checks and training where they will have the most impact. We will keep improving our guidance, services and the consistency of the requisitions we raise.”
During the podcast Robertson is asked how firms can continue to improve their performance. He suggests there is no single formula for success. In his experience strong post-completion administration appears to be a common feature. Some firms have dedicated post-completion teams, while others embed quality checking into their wider processes. Regardless of the approach, investing time and resource into getting applications right first time delivers clear benefits in efficiency, profitability and client service.
HMLR also provide training material through the HM Land Registry training hub which Robertson implores firms to view and use.
Listen in to the Today’s Conveyancer Podcast discussion here.
