HM Land Registry (HMLR) say they have beaten their self-imposed March 2025 deadline to process 95% of all applications within 12 months of submission; evidence of the progress they have made in the years since COVID-19 and the sizeable backlogs that ensued.
The achievement was highlighted in the recently published 2024/25 Annual Report and Accounts identifying the waiting time for 95% of each application type improved considerably, decreasing from 17.6 months to 11.9 months during 2024/25. The statistic was also shared by outgoing HMLR Chief Executive Simon Hayes in a blog in April in which he acknowledged the organisation had made much progress, but had ‘a lot further to go.’
The report brings an end to Business Plan 2022 to 2025 and Strategy 2022+ which was focused on achieving three strategic objectives
- Deliver an improved speed of service for our customers
- Lay the foundations for our future role in a digital property market and maximise our impact on the wider economy
- Modernise our organisational culture and ways of working
In the last 12 months its turnover has increased nearly 20% £319.3m in 2023-24 to£395.3m in 2024-25.
But its efforts to reduce the overall backlog have not been quite successful with the number of outstanding post-completion applications increasing from 572,000 in 2023/24 to 636,000 in 2024/25.
In mitigation HMLR said:
“We made the decision during the year to accept an increase in the number of younger and simpler applications, which we receive in very large volumes, to prioritise reducing the age and number of older, more complex applications. This approach aligns with what is most important to customers. Consequently, the number of outstanding applications increased to 636,000.”
They explained these applications largely involve changes to existing titles and other post-exchange queries.
“The legal interests of the applicant are protected from the moment we receive the application.”
There is no mention of the industrial action the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union launched in January of this year and which ended a few weeks ago having had a ‘negligible’ impact on service said HMLR.
The report goes on to detail the progress HMLR has made in moving to a digital first service for the near £9tn worth of property assets across England and Wales. Nine in 10 applications are submitted digitally; over 3.9 million in the financial year 2024/25. The portal has c.8,000 users daily, making 2.5m applications, of which 1.5m applications were submitted through the Digital Registration Service (DRS).
The agency has said the conveyancing profession still has work of its own to do, to reduce the 815,000 requisitions raised last year; some 19% of all applications (4.4m) which it estimates adds c. 15 working days to complete a registration. In March HMLR announced it was using artificial intelligence (AI) to stop unnecessary requisitions by preventing ‘simple administrative errors’ from being submitted through Business Gateway-enabled software.
The checks include verification of data like ensuring the Charge date is in the present and not a date in the future, omissions of applicant and borrower names, confirmation of Declaration of trust, and title number errors. It hopes by 2028 the enhancements could save as much as 300,000 hours annually.
Efforts to digitise local land charges have also made progress with 110 local authorities successfully transferring more than 7.2 million local land charges to the digital Local Land Charges Register; reducing the time taken to receive search results in migrated areas from days or weeks to instant availability online.
Tools like the free Property Alert service have contributed to the prevention of more than £59m worth of fraudulent property applications over the last 12 months, with an uplift of over 100,000 accounts now registered on the service; taking the total to more than 798,000. Other activity included ‘reviewing and updating HM Land Registry’s methods for detecting fraud, working in partnership with other agencies across government and the property sector and encouraging the public to be on their guard’.
“It’s encouraging that the number of Property Alert accounts has risen so much but fraudsters will always be looking for a new angle, so we mustn’t drop our guard”
said Lynne Feddon, Head of Counter Fraud.
Commenting on the annual report Hayes, said:
“We know how important it is that everyone can rely on HM Land Registry to ensure their property ownership records are secure and accurate. This is fundamental in helping people to buy homes, develop land and secure mortgages. Our role in maintaining the guaranteed record of property ownership in England and Wales is of huge economic importance to the country, supporting and enabling more than £1 billion of property market activities every day.
“Our investment in digital services and focus on efficiency has allowed us to process registrations faster, although we will continue to reduce the time it takes for us to process certain applications.
“Our focus on improving the speed of registration has yielded tangible results. By March 2025 we had surpassed our target to process 95% of all applications within 12 months of submission. However, we remain committed to further improving the service we provide to our customers and the industry, both by harnessing technology and through the dedication of our people.”
HMLR will publish its Strategy 2025+ in Autumn, with the annual report providing some insight into what might be included outlining a continued effort to improve services, automate more of the ‘simpler work’, reduce requisitions, simplify the fee structure and support efforts to create ‘more streamlined, digital homebuying process.’
