Register development

Creating a comprehensive register of land in England and Wales is vitally important to Land Registry. It will mean every registered landowner has the best possible legal protection making buying and selling property easier for everyone concerned. At present 40 per cent of the land area of England and Wales is unregistered because many homes and estates have for example, not been sold, mortgaged or re-mortgaged since compulsory registration was introduced in their area.

Land Registry's register development teams, based in each of our local offices, have taken on the challenge of encouraging unregistered landowners to register voluntarily, helping us meet our 2006/7 target to register another 700,000 hectares of land, roughly equivalent to 5 per cent of England and Wales. Some of the new registrations were the property of high-profile estates, landowners and government agencies. Others were historic buildings whose conservation will be enhanced by the security of registration.

Our media campaign has meant register development managers have been speaking directly to newspaper, TV and radio reporters, often for the first time. Media training has helped them prepare for the experience. On occasion they have done several interviews in succession, switching between media through the day.