Land Registry and its achievements

Dispelling the myths around land registration

Land Registry has been working successfully with a wide range of organisations to bring land progressively on to the Land Register.

News in brief

• We have issued a marketing pack to large landowners to actively encourage them to register their estates. It spells out the benefits of a registered title to land and looks at the detail of the Land Registration Act 2002.
• We have completed a public consultation exercise aimed at helping landlords and tenants by developing a standard form of lease.
• We have issued a new public guide,‘Your rights under the Freedom of Information Act and how it affects the Land Register’ in line with our aim for greater transparency.

Target 2012 – 100 per cent land registration

“What are the advantages of registering my land?” This is the direct question that the Register Development Team encounters when it meets landowners, estate managers and legal representatives as it works towards the target of 100 per cent registration by 2012.

Over the past two years, Land Registry has been working successfully with a wide range of organisations to bring land progressively on to the Land Register. We identify potential customers with large landholdings and work hard to win them over to voluntary registration. This means discussing how the process works, exploring any issues the customer may have and ensuring that the process of registration goes as smoothly as possible. A major promotional campaign is being launched to local authorities and other key bodies, private landowners and utility companies. The team is already working with more than 500 customers, including the Church Commissioners and the Duchy of Cornwall Estate. Local authorities and the Government are also firmly in the team’s sights.

The Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, has urged Cabinet members to begin, or speed up, existing programmes of registering all Government-held land in England and Wales as this would set an example to landholders in the private sector.

Protecting the public from scams

To the unwary, ‘How to get your hands on free land and property’ could seem like a tempting proposition. However, the vast majority of these advertisements which have appeared in newspapers are grossly misleading.

We have launched a new guide ‘Free land and property – advertisements about claiming land in England and Wales’ to help protect the public from parting with fees demanded by unscrupulous operators. It deals with the key questions and dispels many of the myths surrounding so-called free land. Some advertisements have implied that land that is unregistered or abandoned is also unowned - the leaflet points out that this is untrue. All land is owned by someone and if you claim land by squatting on it, there is no guarantee that the true owner will not use the law to reclaim it.