HM Land Registry (HMLR) aims to have all outstanding case down to less than 12 months by the end of its financial year in March 2025 says a senior leader at the organisation.
Speaking on the Conveyancing Matters YouTube chat, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Customer and Strategy at HM Land Registry (HMLR) Mike Harlow was being interviewed by hosts Lorraine Richardson and Stuart Forsdike who took him to task on the ongoing industrial action at HMLR, first registrations and delays, and more over the course of the one hour recording.
HMLR is responsible for safeguarding land and property ownership valued at £8 trillion, enabling over £1 trillion worth of personal and commercial lending to be secured against property across England and Wales. Against this backdrop Harlow discusses the work of HMLR in supporting professionals safely and securely transfer title one home owner to the next and the role of the organisation in the industry’s efforts to digitise; pertinent in the wake of the recent announcements on modernising the home moving process, albeit the podcast was recorded in January.
Despite the ongoing industrial action Harlow is up front the first priority of HMLR is to keep the property market moving and is ‘as confident as we can be’ there will be no major impact. He points to the work of the organisation during COVID-19 as evidence of keeping key services moving. ‘This won’t impact the market I wouldn’t worry about it’ he concludes.
Moving on to delays, as owner of Essex-based conveyancing practice PCS Legal Forsdike says he has seen a c.10% increase in volumes as a result of the SDLT nil rate band changes coming in March 2025. Acknowledging expediting services like first registrations is ‘borrowing from Peter to give to Paul’ when taking resource from teams tackling backlogs to deal with expedition requests, Harlow reminds conveyancing firms that they must ‘play fair’ when applying to speed up a registration application. He says that ‘Queue jumping is not a dirty word if the queue jumping is done for the right reason,’ adding HMLR are achieving 95% of first registrations in 10 working days where they are expedited.
On delays in general, pointing to the extensive recruitment and training undertake by HMLR – over the past three years HMLR has recruited more than 1,700 new caseworkers – and the time it takes to build land registration skills and expertise, Harlow says he is confident that by the end of March, the oldest Land Registry cases will be below 12 months and declining.
The conversation moved on to other areas of significance to conveyancing lawyers and everyone involved with the property market, including digitisation, the increased use of technology in the property market and where liability lies in the event of hacking. As Lorraine said: ‘The L word – liability – is the key for a lot of people.’ And on the topic of speeding up conveyancing and using countries like Norway as a reference point, Harlow says there are ‘lender and cultural issues’ to be addressed before greater progress can be made.
Discussing welcoming Harlow on to the YouTube chat, co-Host Stuart Forsdike said
“It is great to welcome Mike back to Conveyancing Matters. What I appreciate most as a law firm owner is Mike’s statement that HM Land Registry serves law firms, their customers and their clients.”
Lorraine Richardson, owner of Adapt Law and co-host of Conveyancing Matters added
“As ever, Mike is open and obliging in his responses and makes it clear that speed of service is a key driver for HM Land Registry. HM Land Registry’s position is central to the digitisation of the conveyancing process and I hope that front line conveyancers will be consulted and listened to. Law firms will also want to know where liability lies in the event of hacking – Mike and his team will hopefully keep the door open to all conveyancers who are best placed to comment and shape this process.”
Land Registry – Delays and Digitisation is now available on the Conveyancing Matters YouTube channel
One Response
We have numerous cases sat at the Land Registry, some complex some easy. Some sat with the Land Registry for 2, 4, 6, 12 months. Yet a case went in last week and was back already with the completed registration. The Land Registry are so incredibly inconsistent with their work they are making our life so much harder. The Land Registry are seemingly, in my opinion, picking and choosing what they are doing and trying to deal with easy stuff first for the benefit of the staff and their turnaround times. This is an absolute nonsense. Do things in date order!