1. This advice note will be useful if you need to find out who owns a piece of land and the extent of the land in that ownership. The main purpose of the Land Registry is to register title to land in England and Wales and to record dealings (for example, sales and mortgages) with registered land. The Registers in Scotland deal with land in Scotland. 2. The Land Registry’s principal aims are: i) to maintain and develop a stable and effective land registration system throughout England and Wales as the cornerstone for the creation and free movement of interests in land; ii) on behalf of the Crown, to guarantee title to registered estates and interests in land for the whole of England and Wales; iii) to provide ready access to up-to-date and guaranteed land information so enabling confident dealings in property and security of title; and iv) to achieve progressively improving performance targets set by the Lord Chancellor, so that high quality services are delivered promptly and at lower costs to users.
Land Registration Act 2002
3. The Land Registration Act 2002 (LRA 2002) and the Land Registration Rules 2003 (LRR 2003) came into force on 13 October 2003.
4. The Act made a number of changes: i) more information placed on the register, streamlining conveyancing investigations; ii) increase in the range of interests that can or must be registered; iii) decrease in the number of interests that can exist off the register; iv) better protection for registered owners against adverse possession (a squatter will not be able to acquire the interest of the property no matter how long he has been in adverse possession if the existing owner objects (some exceptions exist)); v) the development of an electronic conveyancing system setting out a framework of in which interests of registered land can be transferred and created; vi) creation of a new post of Adjudicator to HM Land Registry, who will determine disputes in land registration applications referred from the Land Registry; vii) the replacement of documents with a database which can be accessed by the internet from anywhere in the world.
Why register land?
5. The aim of registering title is to provide a safe, simple and economic system of transferring and mortgaging land. There are a number of advantages to registering land: guarantee of title, resolution of disputes, quicker examination of title, and more confidence in title.
6. Section 4, LRA 2002 specifies events which trigger compulsory land registration: on the transfer of a freehold estate in land; on the transfer of an existing leasehold estate in land with more than seven year to run; on the grant of a new leasehold estate in land; on a first legal mortgage.
7. A person may make a voluntary application to the registrar to be registered as the proprietor of an unregistered legal estate if the estate is vested in him or if he is entitled to require the estate to be vested in him.
8. The land register is a record of all land registrations in England and Wales. Each register of title has its own number (the title number) and is split into three parts:
The Property Register describes the property. It refers to an official plan (title/index plan) which is prepared for each title. It may also give details of any benefits to the registered estate, for example: easements, rights, privileges, conditions and covenants and other similar matters benefiting the land.
- The Proprietorship Register records who owns the property—the name and address of the legal owner(s) and the class of title (e.g. absolute title), and shows whether there are any restrictions on their power to sell. Where the class of title is possessory, the name of the first proprietor of the registered estate will be entered.
- The Charges Register gives details of registered mortgages and notices of other financial burdens on the property (the amount of money involved is not usually given). It also gives notice of other rights and interests that may affect the property; these include leases, rights of way, or covenants that limit how the property is to be used.
9. Also produced is a title plan, showing the location and extent of the property. The plan does not normally show who owns the boundary features.
10. There are a number of different ways in which land can be owned, and a number of people can own or have an interest in a piece of land. Technically all land in England and Wales is only truly owned by the Crown, but although the public has only a form of tenure, it is generally considered to be ownership. Ownership comprises two parts: the type of ownership (e.g. sole legal owner, joint tenancy) and the class of title.
Accessing information
11. The Land Registry has the details of over 19 million registered properties in England and Wales, a figure which is increasing daily. However there are still millions of properties that have not been registered and the Land Registry has no details of them (see section on unregistered land below).
12. All registered titles have been fully computerised. Access to the register is now available by telephone, fax, and Internet.
13. There are three websites for information:
- www.landregistry.gov.uk The main website which provides information about the services, forms and guides.
- www.landregisteronline.gov.uk Provides electronic access to some of the land registry’s records. This service is aimed at the general public.
- www.landregistrydirect.gov.uk Aimed at professionals and gives instant online access to more than 19 million registers of title. This is a quick, simple and inexpensive way of obtaining property information.
14. Any person can apply to inspect or obtain official copies of the following documents as of right:
- the register or caution register of an individual title;
- any title plan or caution plan of an individual title;
- any document referred to in the register except leases and charges received before 13 October 2003;
- any document not referred to in the register which relates to an application except those received before 13 October 2003.
There are some exceptions to the general rights of inspection and copying.
15. The Land Registry maintains a map that records whether any registered title affects a parcel of land—s.68 Land Registration Act 2002 (LRA 2002). This map is based on the Ordnance Survey (OS) map and is called the Index Map.
16. Each individual registered title has a title plan. Its purpose is to provide a plan of the land included in a registered title and the extent of land affected by entries on that individual register. It must always be viewed in conjunction with the register. Title Plans used to be known as the ‘filed plan’ (and may still sometimes be described in this way).
17. One of the most important factors that the Land Registry takes into account when preparing a title plan is the plan lodged with an application. It is in the applicant’s interest that the plan lodged with their application or used in a deed meets basic standards of accuracy.
18. Land Registry title plans are now produced using OS’s definitive large-scale digital map data. This is supplied and maintained in a single consistent format, but is surveyed and digitalised at different scales according to location.
19. The index map has been converted into an electronic map format using the OS digital map as its base. The purpose of the index map is to show every registered title within England and Wales. The index map enables the title number of each property that is registered to be established. Once the title number is known, the individual title plan and register of any registered title can be accessed. Land Registry does not hold any title information on unregistered land, but the index map does show properties in the process of being registered.
20. The index map can be accessed using the title number, OS map reference, or sometimes even the address of the property.
21. Each registered title has a separate coloured edging created for it and shown on the index map. This is an index map polygon and consists of an area of pink colouring surrounded by red edging showing the position of the land in a title. Each property contains its own access point to further information known as seedpoints. The seedpoints give details of the address and where the property is registered, the title number and the class of title.
22. Where an island of land is excluded from a title it will be shown in green and a note of exclusion should be added to the property register and the title plan.
23. It is difficult to attain perfect accuracy in survey measurements and drawing features on a plan. OS maps are therefore subject to specified tolerances; consequently measurements scaled between features shown on the OS map will not exactly match the actual distance measured between the same features on the ground. Different levels of accuracy are dependent on the scale of the map and the original method used to create it.
24. The OS map shows permanent physical features, normally at ground level, along with a variety of descriptive information and symbols. Within private gardens the only feature the OS map shows are permanent buildings over 12m square in area, roads and track over 100m long and other continuous features eg streams and features that mark an administrative boundary.
25. All Land Registry plans are the Crown copyright and all rights are reserved.
26. ‘Boundary’ has no special meaning in law. In landownership it is understood in two ways: i) Legal boundary: The line which divides one person’s land from another’s and is not visible on the ground. It is an exact line having no thickness; ii) Physical boundary: a feature such as a fence, wall or hedge.
27. The legal boundary may be intended to follow the physical boundary but this is not always the case, as the legal boundary may run somewhere within a feature or along a particular side or include all or any part of an adjoining roadway or stream. Therefore the precise position of the legal boundary is often unclear owing to the difficulty in defining the boundary, deeds often being silent on this issue, and to legal presumptions which may apply to determine ownership.
28. It is possible to have a boundary determined; this is a procedure that allows for the exact line of a boundary to be determined and recorded on a registered title (s60, LRA 2002). Alternatively adjoining owners can clarify a boundary by entering into a formal agreement and applying for it to be noted on the individual registers.
29. Easements (private rights of way) Where possible these are entered onto the Charges Register using verbal descriptions instead of plan references. This is done to ensure that the subject matter described is clearly identifiable on the title plan. Where a plan is necessary the extent of the beneficial rights of way are shown by brown colouring or hatching and the subjective rights of way shown in blue colouring or hatching.
30. Public Rights of Way (overriding interests) The Land Registry Act 1862 s27(2) stated that ‘public rights of way, liability to repair highways by reason of tenure, rights of way, watercourse and rights of water and other easements or servitudes, rights of common manorial rights and franchises’ were not deemed to be encumbrances requiring an entry on the register. However if any such charges or liabilities ‘appear or are discovered in the course of proceedings prior to registration’ the registrar was obliged to note them on the register. The consequence of s27 was that the purchaser of registered land took it subject to such charges and liabilities whether or not the details appeared on the register.
31. Public rights of way were classed as ‘overriding interests’ under s70(i)(a) LRA 1925; such interests were not to be treated as encumbrances and although such interests were not entered onto the register, a purchaser of registered land would take the title subject to such public rights by virtue of this section.
32. The problem here is that a purchaser of land may not necessarily be aware of a public right until the conveyance is complete or near completion, or in some instances may never be aware of the public right until a separate event occurs, eg application for planning permission is made or someone tries to walk the right of way or claim it.
33. Alternatively there may be occasions where a registered landowner is encouraged to obstruct a public right of way because no reference is made to it on the register. However there is a clear warning on the front cover of the Land Certificate regarding the clear possibility of overriding interests existing.
34. The LRA 2002, reduces the importance of overriding interests and provides that they may be recorded on the register.
35. The Act contains two separate lists of interests with overriding status. Schedule 1 lists those that override first registration. Schedule 3 lists those that override registered dispositions. Public rights are in both schedules and therefore they retain overriding status indefinitely.
36. Disclosure of overriding interests Anyone applying for first registration or to register a registrable disposition must give the registrar information concerning the overriding interest affecting the estate in question; this is by virtue of s71 LRA 2002, ‘duty to disclose unregistered interests’. The registrar will then be able to note them on the register.
37. S37 LRA 2002 gives the registrar a general power to enter a notice in respect of an interest that is an interest of the kind mentioned in Schedule 1, provided that it is not excluded by section 33. This is part of the strategy of the Act to eliminate, where practicable, overriding interests, and ensure that they are entered on the register. The section provides that notice of the making of the entry will be served on such persons as rules may provide.
38. The 1925 Act made no distinction between those interests which are overriding on first registration and those that were overriding on a disposition of registered land. The Act makes this distinction so that the existing concept of overriding interests is not brought forward into the Act. Schedule 1 lists the interests which are overriding on first registration and are therefore binding on the proprietor even though there is no entry in the register (see sections 11(4) and 12(4)). Schedule 3 lists the interests which are binding on persons who acquire an interest in registered land notwithstanding that there is no entry in the register (see section 29(2)). Section 71 provides that a person applying for first registration of title or to register a dealing with registered land must disclose such details of known interests falling within the appropriate Schedule as are specified in rules.
39. Where property is not registered, the Land Registry will not be able to supply any information concerning it, and will refund any fee if a request for information has been made.
40. The owner of unregistered land will possess a bundle of deeds, forming a record of previous sales transactions, mortgages and dealings with the land. Where the land is mortgaged the lender will usually hold the deeds.
41. Prior to land registration Deed Registries were set up in Middlesex and the Yorkshire Ridings. These Deed Registries kept records of certain land transactions; however the deeds were registered against the names of the people involved, as opposed to address or location. Therefore to make a search you need to know the name of a previous or current owner of a property.
42. Records of restrictive covenants, rights and mortgages relating to unregistered land are maintained by the Land Charges Department. Unfortunately these were registered against the name of the landowner at the time the entry was made rather than against the land or property, therefore a search will prove difficult where the landowner is unknown.
43. Environmental Stewardship and the Rural Land Register (RLR)Environmental Stewardship is a new scheme, giving farmers in England the opportunity to be paid for environmental work on their farms. The scheme will require that all land entered into the scheme must be registered on to the RLR; and to ensure that all applications can be processed, farmers must have registered their land with the Rural Payment Agency (RPA) in advance of submitting an application.
44. The vast majority of unregistered land is in rural areas; much of it has been passed down to family members, escaping the triggers of registration of the 1925 Act. It is hoped that this scheme will enable such land to be registered.
45. It is yet to be ascertained whether the RLR and the Land Registry are to be connected for the purpose of sharing information and encouraging registration of land, and whether the public may access the information contained in the RLR.
46. However the introduction of the Freedom for Information Act 2002 and the Environmental Information Regulation 2004 means that information from the RLR may be available.
47. The list of public authorities subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and consequently the Environmental Information Regulation 2004 is vast and includes government departments, publicly owned companies, agencies, the police, boards, authorities, committees, commissions, councils, foundations, etc. The Data Protection Act 1998 may have implications since the data maintained by the RLR and other bodies may contain sensitive or personal information.
Conclusion
48. Public rights of way are defined as overriding interests and by virtue of s71 of LRA 2002 there is a duty to disclose such interests where they are known. Unlike some other overriding interests, even if recorded on the register under the heading of public rights, public rights of way maintain their overriding status.
49. As a result, where a public right of way is recorded on the register, it will be difficult for a landowner to deny knowledge of its existence and this will assist the RA in achieving its charitable aims, eg in bringing a private prosecution where a right of way is obstructed.
50. The Land Registry is now in the public domain and anyone who is interested in a property can obtain information on it. In circumstances where there is doubt as to who is the registered proprietor, enquires can be made quickly and inexpensively to obtain this information, provided that the land is registered. Unfortunately, where the land in question is unregistered and the proprietor is unknown, it remains very difficult to acquire this information.
