Our future

As part of our drive to make property transactions easier for all, we have increased electronic access to and provision of services for all our customers. This includes our Land Registry Direct service for business customers and Land Register Online, which allows the public to view individual registers and title plans via the internet. The total number of applications being processed through Land Registry Direct, our busiest electronic service by far, is now regularly exceeding 1.8 million per month. Land Register Online continues to grow in popularity with almost 100,000 downloads being requested each month.

Land Registry is well advanced in the development of what we believe to be the most far-reaching electronic conveyancing system in the world. The Land Registration Act 2002 paved the way for electronic conveyancing in England and Wales. The programme of work to introduce this is led by Land Registry and aims to utilise advances in technology by creating a system that reduces the delay and anxiety often experienced in the home-buying process. E-conveyancing is the transformation of the current paper-based conveyancing system into an electronic system, using electronic documents, requisitions and signatures, and is integral to Land Registry�s Business Transformation Programme.

In September 2007 we published a revised version of our organisational Blueprint. This new version reinforces the message about how we will become the organisation we believe we need to be and describes a new business model for Land Registry that:

includes a more comprehensive register
provides for e-conveyancing for dealings of whole and part
continues to provide traditional registration and information services
provides a new range of non-statutory (commercial) services
continues to offer excellent customer support services.

The Business Transformation Programme will oversee and drive forward the realisation of our Blueprint. Over the next two to three years, the programme is planned to deliver electronic charges (mortgages), the focus for 2008, and electronic transfers, during 2009; new policies and operating practices to support the new business model together with new fee structures and performance measures; the portal, by which we mean a single website through which all of our e-services can be accessed; and a new model for our internal support services, in particular regionalised HR and a transformed Information Systems function.

During February 2008, Land Registry completed the e-security key signing ceremony, paving the way for electronic signatures to be used throughout the conveyancing process and beyond.