Guidance

HM Land Registry portal: change of organisation name

How Business e-services customers can change their organisation name in the portal, either because of a change of legal entity or re-branding.

Applies to England and Wales

Tell us about a change to your organisation name

Security restrictions within HM Land Registry’s systems mean that your existing organisation and registered user accounts must be deleted and new ones created. All of your registered users will require new accounts (for example new User IDs, passwords, shared secrets) and security tokens for your administrators.

We cannot re-create your organisation’s registered user accounts. This is your administrators’ responsibility, once the new organisation account has been activated and at least one Variable Direct Debit (VDD) account has been associated with it.

Provide documents and information

There are two scenarios, organisations change their name as a result of a change of legal entity or because of re-branding.

In both circumstances a VDD account must be linked to your new organisation account and you should apply for a new VDD account in your new organisation name. The application form and mandate are included in our Variable Direct Debit scheme.

We can then allow existing and new organisation accounts to run side by side until all applications submitted before the change of organisation name are completed. This allows existing users uninterrupted access to Business e-services and time for your administrators to create new user accounts.

If you are a Business Gateway customer, we will contact you to arrange for a new security certificate will be issued in the name of the new organisation.

If your organisation is a new legal entity, you will need to complete, sign and submit a new application for Business e-services using form AFS1. If your organisation uses Network or Lender Services, you must also sign and submit new agreements:

Re-branding

If your organisation is not a new legal entity and has changed its name as a result of re-branding only, we need you to supply details of the continuing responsible person (any deputies) and administrators and we will send you a form to do this. You do not need to sign new agreements.

We’ll create your new account

We will create your new organisation account as close as possible to the date on which a change of name or a new legal entity takes effect.

We will also create a new responsible person, deputy responsible person (if any) and administrator accounts, and issue new security credentials.

We will link your new VDD account(s) to your new organisation account, and contact you to let you know it’s been done.

You’ll manage your new account

Your administrators can begin to create your new authorised user accounts as soon as they receive their security credentials and a VDD account is linked to the new organisation account.

Once an authorised user has a new account, they must stop submitting applications using their old account and use their new one. Users will be able to use their existing account to view PDF Downloads for transactions submitted using that account or downloads of other users associated with the existing organisation account.

The old organisation account and its associated registered user and VDD accounts (if any) will be closed when all applications submitted by users before the change of organisation name are completed. We will tell you this is happening five working days before.

Access to Business e-services during this process

Step by step guides for Business e-services functions are available on our How to use the HM Land Registry portal page.

Variable Direct Debit (VDD) transaction report

Responsible persons, deputy responsible persons and financial administrators will continue to be able to use their old account to view VDD transactions for up to 3 months.

They should view the transaction report and download or print it as required, whilst it remains available.

Details of transactions submitted using key numbers that are closed or no longer associated with the accounts will not be available.

We will give you at least five days’ notice of the intended closure of a VDD account or its removal from an organisation account.

Administrator report

This report is available for up to 31 days, to a responsible person and deputy responsible persons through portal, listing account activity done by HM Land Registry administrators and your organisation’s administrators. This is to make sure your administrators are acting under proper instructions, given by means of established procedures, in accordance with your organisation’s policy.

Responsible persons and deputy responsible persons can use their existing accounts to access Administrator Reports associated with the existing organisation account for as long as those existing accounts remain active.

We will give you at least five days’ notice of the intended closure your existing account to access the report.

PDF downloads

You can access PDFs for 30 days (inclusive) from the day the application was completed.

Access to PDF Downloads is not dependent on VDD accounts and not affected by transferring a VDD account from an existing organisation account to a new organisation account.

Access to Services Requested

With Services Requested you can access all VDD accounts associated with your portal account and see the services ordered from the day you login and the previous 6 days.

This applies even when a VDD account is transferred from the existing organisation account to the new organisation account during this period.

Definitions

Portal term Definitions
organisation account The account created for an organisation using HM Land Registry Business e-services
VDD account A Variable Direct Debit account, required for the payment of fees for transactions submitted through portal
portal The web infrastructure for HM Land Registry that provides a single point of access to HM Land Registry Business e-services
responsible person and deputy responsible person A person within the organisation nominated to supervise the activities of their administrators and users
administrator The role of an administrator of an organisation using Business e-services is to manage system access for the individual authorised users of an organisation by creating, deleting and resetting accounts
financial administrator A user authorised by an organisation to access VDD Transaction Reports for the previous 3 months only
authorised user a person who is authorised by an organisation using Business e-services to submit electronic applications on its behalf
registered user Any person with an account or permissions to use Business e-services offered through portal, such as responsible person, deputy responsible person, administrator, financial administrator or user

Contact us

Before you begin the process, contact us:

Service Access Team

PO Box 650
Southfield House
Southfield Way
Durham
DH1 9LR

DX313201
Durham 24

Contact form https://customerhelp.l...

Telephone 0300 006 0411

Updates to this page

Published 13 May 2016

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