The latest data from HM Land Registry shows that completed applications saw a fall last month.
Whilst a drop in applications is to be anticipated at this time of year, the decline occurred on both a monthly and yearly basis, with the transaction figures indicating that in December, 1,266,641 applications were completed. This can be compared with last December’s figure of 1,271,984.
Of this year’s completed applications, 319,721 were to update existing titles, down from 411,092 in the previous month.
Seeing a more significant fall was the number of applications to gain an official copy of the register, dropping from 834,546 in November to 551,427.
The fall for official searches was slightly less steep, with completed applications standing at 197,327, down from 238,129 in November.
Postal applications from non-account holders also saw a fall, with the total dropping from 30,948 to 26,377 month-on-month.
The region home to the highest number of completed applications was the South East at 287,649. Behind this was Greater London at 250,636 followed by the North West at 139,168.
Where local authority areas were concerned, Birmingham saw the greatest number of applications being completed at 19,714. The City of Westminster was just behind at 17,977, with Leeds following at 14,262.
The full dataset can be accessed here.
