Corporate report

Annual report of HM Land Registry 2016 to 2017: appendices

Updated 12 September 2017

Applies to England and Wales

Appendix A

Volumes and workloads 2016/17 and 2015/16

Application intake by type and method of receipt

	2016/17			2015/16
	Total applications/products received	Applications/products received through online services	% of applications/products received through online services	Total applications/products received	Applications/products received through online services	% of applications/products received through online services
Total applications/products	31,836,030	29,605,434	93.0	30,372,360	28,224,225	92.9
Bulk register updates (BRUs)	591,774	–	–	352,348	–	–
Total applications excluding BRUs	31,244,256	29,605,434	94.8	30,020,012	28,224,225	94.0
Substantive applications excluding BRUs	4,905,545	4,255,148	86.6	4,721,574	3,926,879	83.2
Preliminary services products	17,794,584	17,633,247	99.1	17,096,106	16,898,741	98.8
Enquiry services applications	8,544,127	7,717,039	90.3	8,202,332	7,398,605	90.2
	31,244,256	29,605,434	94.8	30,020,012	28,224,225	94.0
Substantive applications excluding BRUs
First registrations	109,030	–	–	111,309	–	–
Dispositionary first leases	230,564	199,239	86.4	224,529	175,592	78.2
Transfers of part of registered land	181,295	151,216	83.4	170,108	129,046	75.9
Dealings of whole with registered land	4,384,656	3,904,693	89.1	4,215,628	3,622,241	85.9
	4,905,545	4,255,148	86.7	4,721,574	3,926,879	83.2
Preliminary services products
Official copies1	14,641,653	14,533,418	99.3	13,882,149	13,760,713	99.1
Official searches	2,381,867	2,371,719	99.4	2,424,335	2,409,063	99.4
Official searches of the index map1	771,064	726,699	92.3	789,622	728,965	92.3
	17,794,584	17,631,836	98.8	17,096,106	16,898,741	98.8
Enquiry services applications
Register views	5,413,795	5,413,795	100.0	5,325,027	5,325,027	100.0
Title plan views	951,324	951,324	100.0	957,449	957,449	100.0
Document views	67,415	67,415	100.0	73,125	73,125	100.0
Correspondence	304,556	192,978	63.4	334,762	214,026	63.9
Telephone enquiries	715,510	–	–	682,991	–	–
MapSearch PDF downloads	1,091,527	1,091,527	100.0	828,978	828,978	100.0
	8,544,127	7,717,039	90.3	8,202,332	7,398,605	90.2

The table above sets out the transactional activities for the year, along with comparatives for the previous year. In this financial year we serviced more than 31 million applications, fulfilling the requirements of the 2002 Land Registration Act. These form the core of our activities and the revenues associated with them. The table also details our progress towards electronic delivery, in relation to the various types of application we receive. Excluding bulk register updates (BRUs), the proportion of applications received electronically rose from 94% to 94.8%.

Bulk register updates are groups of applications lodged at HM Land Registry affecting a large volume of registered titles, such as a bank changing the address for service on all of its registered charges. The levels of receipt of such applications are volatile in their nature and are therefore separated from other application types in order to avoid distortion of the data.

Note: An official copy application may result in more than one register and/or title plan being supplied. A search of the index map application may give rise to more than one title number being revealed. For this reason the number of registers/title plans or the number of title numbers revealed are used as a metric rather than the number of applications themselves. These are termed products.

Appendix B

Land Charges and Agricultural Credits volumes and workloads 2016/17 and 2015/16

The Land Charges Department

The Land Charges Department operates under the authority of the Land Charges Act 1972.

The department maintains registers of Land Charges, pending actions, writs and orders affecting land and other encumbrances registered against the names of owners of property, which are not registered under the Land Registration Acts. The department also maintains the Index of Proprietors’ Names (IOPN). This index can be searched against only on production of the appropriate authority and is used to establish whether any property assets are held against individuals or companies.

Some elements of customer accounts are also managed in the Land Charges Department.

Type of application	Number of applications or names in 2016/17	Percentage variation compared with 2015/16
New registrations, rectifications and renewals	42,572	-20.54
Cancellations	8,671	-14.76
Official searches
– Full searches	172,098	-2.23
– Searches limited to insolvency	1,511,711	+9.96
Office copies	25,490	-4.08
Total	1,760,542	+7.28

The Agricultural Credits Department

The Agricultural Credits Department is responsible for maintaining a register of short-term loans by banks under Part ll of the Agricultural Credits Act 1928. These charges are secured on farming stock and other agricultural assets of the farmer.

Year	New registrations	Cancellations and rectifications	Searches	Total
2015/16	857	820	2,541	4,218
2016/17	562	675	2,293	3,530

Appendix C

Treasury Minute

HM Land Registry Trading Fund

HM Treasury Minute dated 24 April 2012

1. Section 4(1) of the Government Trading Funds Act 1973 (“the 1973 Act”) provides that a Trading Fund established under that Act shall be under the control and management of the responsible Minister (or, where a Trading Fund is established for operations carried on by a person appointed in pursuance of any enactment, that person, if the Order establishing the Trading Fund in accordance with section 1(6) (a) of the 1973 Act) and in the discharge of his functions in relation to the fund it shall be his duty:

(a) To manage the funded operations so that the revenue of the fund:

(i) Consists principally of receipts in respect of goods and services provided in the course of the funded operations, and

(ii) is not less than sufficient, taking one year with another, to meet outgoings which are properly chargeable to revenue account; and

(b) To achieve such further financial objectives as the Treasury may from time to time, by minute laid before the House of Commons, indicate as having been determined by the responsible Minister (with Treasury concurrence) to be desirable of achievement.

1. The Trading Fund for HM Land Registry was established on 1 April 1993 under the Land Registry Trading Fund Order 1993 (SI 1993 No.938). Article 3 (2) of that Order provides that the Trading Fund shall be under the control and management of the Chief Land Registrar. Additional assets were appropriated to the Trading Fund on 11 March 1996 under the Land Registry Trading Fund (Additional Assets) Order 1996 (SI 1996 No. 750). On 13 October 2003, the Trading Fund was extended and amended under the Land Registry Trading Fund (Extension and Amendment) Order 2003 (SI 2003 No. 2094).

2. The Secretary of State for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, being the responsible Minister for the purposes of section 4(1)(b) of the 1973 Act, has determined (with Treasury concurrence) that a further financial objective desirable of achievement by HM Land Registry to achieve, over the period from 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2017, a return, averaged over the period as a whole, of at least 3.5 % real (see note 1) in accordance with Managing Public Money. This will take the form of an operating surplus on ordinary activities post exceptional items and interest (payable and receivable), but before dividends, expressed as a percentage of average capital employed. Capital employed shall equate to the total assets from which shall be deducted the total liabilities.

3. This Minute supersedes that dated 15 December 2003.

4. Let a copy of this Minute be laid before the House of Commons pursuant to section 4(1)(b) of the Government Trading Funds Act 1973.

Note1: 3.5% real will be calculated annually as 3.5% plus the latest inflation estimate for that year, provided by ONS. By way of a worked example, for the fiscal year 2012/13 the financial target will be 6.29%. This has been calculated as (1+3.5%)* (1+ 2.7%), where 2.7% is the ONS 2012/13 inflation estimate (National Accounts figures from the ONS, http:// www.hm-treasury.gov.uk /data_ gdp _fig.htm, 22 December 2011).

HM Treasury
24 April 2012

Appendix D

Sustainability historical data

Carbon data (tonnes)

Year	Year-on-year greenhouse gas (GHG) target	Forecast GHG (including initiatives)	Actual GHG	Actual percentage reduction (cumulative)
2009/10 (baseline)	14,326	14,326	14,326	0%
2010/11	13,610	14,326	13,099	-9%
2011/12	12,893	14,326	11,211	-22%
2012/13	12,177	14,326	11,340	-21%
2013/14	11,461	14,326	9,128	-36%
2014/15	10,745	13,176	8,656	-41%
2015/16	9,885	9,885	8,392	-41%
2016/17	8,596	8,596	7,328	-49%

The greenhouse gas draft target is to reduce emissions by 31% by March 2020 over the baseline data for 2009/10.

Gross emissions have reduced by 49% over the baseline.

Waste arising (tonnes)

Year	Year-on-year waste target	Forecast waste (including initiatives)	Actual waste	Actual percentage reduction (cumulative)
2009/10 (baseline)	1,979	1,979	1,979	0%
2010/11	1,880	1,979	1,443	-27%
2011/12	1,781	1,979	1,689	-15%
2012/13	1,682	1,979	1,421	-28%
2013/14	1,583	1,979	959	-51%
2014/15	1,484	1,979	907	-54%
2015/16	1,484	1,484	1,106	-44%
2016/17	1,484	1,484	1,048	-47%

The table shows the trend for waste arising against the Greening Government Commitments reduction target of 25% by March 2020. A 47% reduction was achieved. Of the waste arising 698 tonnes is paper sent for processing through the closed loop paper recycling provision within government. This paper equates to 70% of our total waste arising.

Water reduction (cubic metres)

Year	Year-on-year water target	Forecast water (including initiatives)	Actual water	Actual percentage reduction (cumulative)
2009/10 (baseline)	57,214	57,214	57,214	0%
2010/11	54,353	57,214	54,644	-4%
2011/12	51,493	57,214	37,413	-35%
2012/13	48,631	57,214	31,230	-45%
2013/14	45,771	56,984	36,037	-37%
2014/15	42,910	56,984	38,153	-33%
2015/16	45,772	45,772	36,395	-36%
2016/17	42,911	42,911	34,967	-39%

A 39% reduction in water consumption has been achieved against a target of 25%. Consumption per full-time equivalent, including staff on HM Land Registry sites from other government departments, is 6.7m^3.

Appendix E

Indemnity Fund

In 2016/17 we paid just under £7m for 995 claims, compared with £8m for 1,003 claims in 2015/16. The largest claim paid this year was £702,290 for a forged discharge of a mortgage. The discharge being lodged meant the property was unmortgaged and the fraudster was then able to transfer the property freely. Fraud (usually by way of forgery or impersonation) remains the single most significant cause of indemnity payments and this reflects the general trend over the past decade or so.

The original maximum value of the substantive claims paid was just over £11m but these were settled for £4.7m saving £6.35m. During the year a further 419 claims valued at £4.85m were settled for no value. Of these 27 were for fraud and were valued at just over £2m. During the year 1,237 new claims were received totalling £14.58m, including 49 fraud claims valued at just over £9m.

We recovered £308,388 under our statutory rights of recourse, compared with £231,298 last year. Recourse figures tend to vary considerably from year to year, reflecting the unpredictable interplay of legal and factual elements which determine the viability of achieving any recovery.

Nature of claim	Number of claims	Substantive loss (£)	Costs (£)	Percentage of total
Extent of registered titles	127	424,890	465,374	12.8
Errors in/omissions from register entries	103	280,424	527,504	11.6
Sundry plans errors	4	5,500	3,736	0.1
Fraud and forgery	53	3,881,225	1,060,200	71.0
Official inspections of title plans	7	1,250	4,523	0.1
Bankruptcy errors	0	0	0	0
Official searches	5	0	1,900	0
Official copies	0	0	0	0
Errors in searches of the index map (SIMs)	11	8,210	10,243	0.3
Errors in filed extracts	258	42,508	60,316	1.5
Lost documents/administrative errors	426	64,996	115,080	2.6
Land Charges errors	1	25	0	0
Total	995	4,709,028	2,248,876	100.0
Gross payment			£6,957,904
Less sums recovered under our statutory right of recourse			£308,388
Net indemnity			£6,649,516