HM Land Registry and the local land charges (LLC) teams in North Yorkshire have successfully migrated their LLC registers over to the digital LLC service.
On 1st April, seven district authorities in North Yorkshire merged with the county council to become the North Yorkshire Council. The council says this “significant step will allow them to join up and strengthen services, improving the quality of life and opportunities for people across the region”.
HM Land Registry and the LLC teams at Craven, Hambleton, Harrogate, Richmondshire, Ryedale, Scarborough, and Selby have collaborated to migrate successfully their LLC registers over to the award-winning digital LLC service.
This means customers now have instant online access to the information. Common charges include planning permissions, listed building status and tree preservation orders.
Obtaining information early is known to “limit the number of property transactions that fail due to late revelations”. Typically failed transactions cost buyers time and up to “£2,700 per incident”.
David Clothier, Service Improvement & Development Manager, Place Shaping & Economic Growth at Harrogate Council, said:
“We feel proud that our team has pulled together to achieve our part of this national project. Transforming more than a 100,000 LLC records was a huge challenge for us, but the support we got from HM Land Registry was outstanding. Expertise from both organisations helped to overcome many challenges, making the migration journey smoother.”
The project’s “success can be attributed in part to our regional cluster strategy”. This strategy enables councils to support each other in the process, which helps to increase the speed of the migrations.
HM Land Registry stated that they “also need to recognise each of the local authority LLC teams who made the migrations possible. By 2025 we aim to migrate all local authorities in England and Wales to the register, allowing the areas to enjoy the wider economic benefits of the digital register”.
More than 500,000 searches have already been conducted in migrated areas. High-quality, standardised data also enables government and industry to work more efficiently and effectively. “By making the data accessible and interoperable we will enable up to £12 to be released back into the UK economy for every pound we invest,” said HM Land Registry.
