HM Land registry (HMLR) have boasted that their digital, holistic Local Land Charges (LLC) system will reduce official search times from “8 weeks to 8 clicks.”
Although the system and allure of instant results will revolutionise the search process and potentially speed up house completions, a fully integrated system, that includes all 326 local authorities, could still be seven years away.
Currently, LLC searches have been used by Warwick District Council since July 11th with Liverpool going live on 3rd September.
In possibly their largest digital transfer to date, HMLR are set to digitally transfer all of City of London Corporation’s LLCs on 8th October.
Despite the small district area housing around 8000 people, the financial district deals with 400,000 commuters per day and over 4 million tourists per year. The information is therefore constantly updating and considered very important.
HM Land Registry commented: “Phase 1 of the new service will be rolled out over the next few months with up to 26 local authorities’ local land charges registers transferred to HM Land Registry by March 2019.
“The timing of future phases has not been decided yet and will be subject to decisions by Ministers.
“Because of the scale and complexity of the service change, as considered in our Regulatory Impact Assessment, this data migration could take up to 7 years.”
Graham Farrant, Chief Executive and Chief Land Registrar, said: “In today’s world, people expect to be able to access government information online quickly and easily, and for a reasonable fee.
“A national Local Land Charges service will achieve that.
“HM Land Registry has a track record for modernising land-related systems and is very pleased to be taking on the delivery of the national Local Land Charges digital register. This is a significant step forward in the Government’s ambition to make the house-buying process simpler, faster and cheaper.”
Although the process of digitally converting the current Local Authority LLC information held in a variety of formats including paper, electronic versions like PDF and digital systems, HMLR hope the benefit of a fast and holistic system will help 125,000 home buyers by the end of 2019.
If HMLR are able to transfer the information for all local authorities within 7 years, the home buying process could be significantly improved by a faster more time efficient system.
Are you currently using the live HMLR LLC digital system? Is it reducing completion times? Will this make the home moving process easier and faster?
2 Responses
I am a Local Land Charges Officer, our searches have never taken 8 weeks to complete! Where have you got this information from as it is not correct!
Which council are you Lucy?