HMLR Digitise Land Charges - UPDATE

For some time now HMLR have been working towards digitising Land Charges departments across England and they look to be taking one of their final steps towards the start of this transition this month.

Just for clarification HMLR are not looking to take over the supply of an entire Local Search, JUST the land charges (as prescribed in the revised legislation) and are only doing so for English Local Authorities, Welsh Authorities have continued to resist this change.

The plan is to digitise 26 of the 326 Authority areas in England between now and the end of 2019, with the rest to follow in the years to come, using a phased approach depending on the readiness of the Local Authorities themselves. 

Read the full story below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hm-land-registry-to-launch-new-local-land-charges-service 

The complicated part of this project, from a usage point of view, is going to be knowing what authorities are swapping over and when the change will take place.

THAT’S WHERE WE COME IN!

We at CDS have been working hand in hand with HMLR since they announced this project back in 2012 and so we are at the forefront of the production, testing and introduction of these new Land Charges searches to the market. 

The announcement was made last week that the first council to make the change is going to be Warwick District Council from 11th July 2018, so what does this mean for you the Solicitor;

At Warwick DC from 11th July;

• There will no longer be such a thing as an Official LLC1 and CON29 Search at this authority.
• A land Charges Search (No Longer called an LLC1) needs to be carried out with HMLR (via CDS of course)
• A CON29 search still needs to be carried out with Warwick DC (don’t worry we will handle this for you as well)

As we have already confirmed, we have all the processes in place to make this a seamless transition from a data supply perspective but you will of course be receiving a different format of search result, at this council, from 11th July.

Did you know that HMLR's new Land Charges results will no longer be in 12 parts?

They will be merging these into one big register, simply listing all charges in one part!

Rest assured that we will bring you all the news and announcements as soon as they are available and that our IT and customer services are ready for these changes so you don’t need to worry.

For more information please click here to send us an email.