Corporate report

Summary of non-qualifying regulatory provisions: 13 December 2019 to 12 December 2020

Updated 19 December 2022

Applies to England and Wales

Regulatory Policy Committee response

Category	Information
Lead regulator	HM Land Registry.
Summary	Summary information provided on measures or activities that should not be considered as a qualifying regulatory provision for the purposes of the business impact target (BIT).
Submission type	Non-qualifying regulatory provision (NQRP) summary.
BIT reporting period covered	13 December 2019 to 12 December 2020.
Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC) reference	RPC-BEIS-LR-5023(1)
Date of issue	26 November 2020.

RPC opinion

Rating 1	RPC opinion
Confirmed	The Regulatory Policy Committee is content with the regulator’s assessment of the measures against the exclusion categories in the present BIT framework and agrees that they are non-qualifying regulatory provisions.

1. There is presently no requirement for regulators to submit their NQRP summaries for RPC assurance. The RPC welcomes the regulator’s voluntary submission. This RPC assurance statement does not provide a detailed view of any specific activity in the regulator’s summary document. Nor does it comment on any activities not included in the summary. Some activities might, however, have been the subject of separate assessments of qualifying regulatory provisions.

Other comments

Rating

HM Land Registry has produced a sufficient NQRP summary, annexed, clearly indicating regulatory provisions introduced during the BIT reporting period concerned and the administrative exclusion they fall under.

The RPC is satisfied, and confirms, that these measures are non-qualifying and correctly categorised. For further information, please contact regulatoryenquiries@rpc.gov.uk.

Business impact target summary

Excluded category	Summary of measures, including any impact data where available
Measures certified as being below de minimis (measures with an equivalent annual net direct cost to business (EANDCB) below +/- £5 million)	HM Land Registry has evaluated and found that the measures referenced below shown in order of the magnitude of the impact (both as a benefit and a burden) fall well within the de minimis threshold. In this reporting period HM Land Registry has: introduced the View My Applications service, which enables HM Land Registry portal users (more than 210,000 customers) to view and manage their applications and correspondence in one place. The time saving being minimal (around 15 seconds) even were this to be undertaken on all portal applications received (2.28 million transactions per month) with approximately £16,500 familiarisation costs would come well within the de minimis threshold made more than 40 updates to practice guides and other guidance held on GOV.UK (where not covered by another administrative exclusion) to add new guidance and examples, to improve readability by consolidating information and removing unnecessary information, to reflect changes in and/or clarify its practices, processes and requirements and to the law around to aid customers in making quality applications and in the understanding of the process. Familiarisation costs in total amount to less than £1 million as a result of the pandemic, developed and introduced new practice for the acceptance of witnessed electronic signatures on deeds, which customers are now beginning to use introduced the ability to make certain Land Charges services (approximately 30,000 such applications were received last year) available by email provided guidance on how to make an application to upgrade a possessory or qualified leasehold title there being currently no such option available on the relating application form. Familiarisation costs of less than £20,000
Casework	Details can be found in HM Land Registry’s Annual Report and Accounts published on GOV.UK.
Education, communications and promotion	HM Land Registry has amended 3 practice guides to explain changes in legislation by other government departments. In addition, promotional material has been produced by HM Land Registry through webinars, videos, and news stories on GOV.UK to aid in the preparation and lodgement of quality applications and the promotion of new services and products.
Activity related to policy development	HM Land Registry is trialling an enhanced Digital Registration Service to submit HM Land Registry applications online.
Changes to management of regulator	HM Land Registry has also undertaken some internal organisational reform which resulted in the processing of certain applications being centralised.
All other excluded categories	Following consideration of the other exclusion categories there are no measures for the reporting period that qualify for the exclusions.