Guidance

Guidance for originating authorities

Updated 19 April 2024

Applies to England and Wales

1. Introduction

This guidance is aimed at originating authority staff who apply to HM Land Registry to register local land charges (LLC) or to vary or cancel registrations. The guidance aims to support the needs of originating authorities in live service, assist them in understanding their responsibilities and help them provide consistency in the data being supplied to HM Land Registry’s LLC register.

The guidance will be updated periodically as necessary.

The guidance is not intended to provide advice on the law of local land charges or replace the information contained in Garner’s Local Land Charges or elsewhere.

HM Land Registry cannot provide legal advice as to whether a charge is a local land charge nor as to who is the originating authority in respect of a particular charge.

All originating authorities will be allocated a Relationship Manager (RM) once they transfer to HM Land Registry’s LLC service. See ‘Customer enquiries’ for the type of issues that should be referred to your RM.

2. Quality checks carried out by HM Land Registry in live service

HM Land Registry has a dedicated team of staff who constantly monitor the quality of the data being entered into the register.

Originating authorities should not rely on HM Land Registry identifying issues with their LLC applications and should have their own procedures in place to ensure applications are made in a timely manner and the information being provided is accurate and complete.

HM Land Registry cannot establish whether information provided by originating authorities is accurate or complete nor can we identify when applications for registration should have been made but haven’t been.

There are certain review points that HM Land Registry use to help monitor the volume of registrations being made by authorities – these include, but are not limited to:

• 7 days of no activity – if a local authority doesn’t add, vary or cancel a charge within any 7 day period, we may get in touch to make sure everything is okay. This check only applies to local authorities.

• 14 day irregular activity – For example, if a local authority added a single financial charge one week and added 40 the next, we may get in touch to make sure the authority isn’t experiencing problems. A deviation of more than 50% of an authority’s normal activity will usually lead to us making contact. This check only applies to local authorities.

• 28 day charge creation – If an application to register a charge has not been made within 28 days of the charge being created or coming into existence, we may contact the originating authority to explore the reasons for the delay. The authority will be reminded that search results may have been issued during this period that may have failed to reveal a local land charge that was in existence at the time the search was made. We will consider whether it is necessary to contact customers who have received these search results. This check applies to all originating authorities.

Reminder: the 28 day check is purely an HM Land Registry review point – ensuring that the application is made within this period will not affect or prevent us from recovering compensation from an originating authority under section 10 of the Local Land Charges Act 1975 (as amended by the Infrastructure Act 2015).

• Monthly different charge type – we monitor all registrations to ensure each category of charge are being registered each month, such as, housing, planning and financial. If this is not the case, we may contact an authority to make sure everything is okay.

This check only applies to local authorities.

Authorities are encouraged to contact their RM once they become aware of circumstances within their organisation that could lead to them breaching one or more of these review points. Additionally, not all breaches of the above review points will lead to contact from us, particularly where we are already aware of the reasons behind the breach.

2.1 API users

Local authorities who are using HM Land Registry’s Application Programme Interface (API) to register, vary and cancel charges will receive a daily report from their service provider (Idox, NEC and so on). This report will detail all charge activity for the previous day. Importantly it will flag any charges that have not been successfully processed through the API and therefore have not been received by HM Land Registry.

The authority should investigate these charges as a matter of urgency and take appropriate remedial action to ensure the charge is registered.

If your LLC team are not currently receiving these reports, please contact your IT department in the first instance.

See Annex for an example of an error log.

2.2 How is data quality assessed?

As well as checking the volume of charges registered by originating authorities, we carry out a series of data quality checks on all new charges added to the register including charges that have been edited (varied). These checks are a continuation of the data quality standards applicable in migration and are to ensure the same standards are maintained in live service.

Textual information – are all dates in a logical order (registration date after creation date)?

• is the postcode valid?
• is there a valid address (and is it structured correctly)?
• are there any invalid characters within the charge?

Spatial information – is the polygon geospatially valid (does it contain self-intersections and so on)?

• does the polygon fall in the postcode area quoted?
• has a point/line been used instead of a polygon?
• is the polygon in the correct place?
• is the polygon too big/small for the charge?

Where elements of a charge fail the above checks, we may flag these to the originating authority for immediate action.

2.3 When a live service issue is identified

A live service issue may be defined as any scenario which has the potential to result in a charge not being revealed by a search or the information revealed by a search being incorrect.

HM Land Registry and originating authorities each have a role to play to ensure the information held on the LLC register is accurate and complete.

Origination authorities have a statutory obligation to apply to register a charge when it comes into existence, or to apply to vary or cancel a registration, when appropriate.

We have a responsibility to register, vary or cancel a charge when application is made in accordance with the Local Land Charges Rules 2018.

2.4 Resolving live service issues

Originating authority staff are expected to work collaboratively with us to resolve any such issues as soon as possible. Failure to do so could result in a claim for compensation and to compensation being recoverable from the originating authority.

Where necessary, we will contact the affected local authority and follow a four-stage process to seek a resolution to these issues.

• Stage 1 – HM Land Registry’s RM for the originating authority concerned to write to the relevant Local Land Charges Officer (LLCO) or equivalent requesting action to be taken to rectify the issue. Action to be carried within 2 weeks of email.

• Stage 2 – If issue remains unresolved, RM to repeat request for action to named contact at the originating authority (this will be a different contact to the LLCO), this time copying request to HM Land Registry’s Senior Relationship Manager (SRM). Action to be carried within 2 weeks of email.

• Stage 3 – If issue remains unresolved, SRM to repeat request for action and escalate to stage 3 contact name in the originating authority. Action to be carried within 2 weeks of email.

• Stage 4 – If issue remains unresolved, SRM to repeat request for immediate resolution of issue to both Chief Executive Officer of the originating authority and the Local Government Association contact (where appropriate).

We will expedite this process in the event of non-compliance from an originating uthority when addressing high impact or critical issues affecting the LLC register.

2.5 Customer enquiries

Local authorities should handle the following enquiries.

• Search result clarification – for example, if a result is unclear or there is incomplete charge information
• All other document requests relating to a search​
• ‘One-off’ errors in search results where the local authority needs to amend or correct a charge entry​
• CON29 enquiries​
• Further information relating to specific charges – that is, a financial charge​
• Specific missing charges

The following types of enquiries should be directed to HM Land Registry.

• Technology or access issues or error messages on GOV.UK/the portal and/or Business Gateway​
• Light Obstruction Notice (LON) document requests ​
• Registration of LONs
• Fee enquiries including fee refunds ​
• Assisted Digital search requests​
• Environmental Information Regulation (EIR) 2004 search requests​
• Searches revealing more than 250 charges

Collaborative enquires where both HM Land Registry and the local authority will work together to resolve the issue.

• Developing themes, for example missing charges, duplicate charges, incomplete charges.

3. Timeliness of registration

Originating authorities have a statutory obligation to register local land charges. Where parts 1 and 3 of Schedule 5 to the Infrastructure Act 2015 have come into effect, the originating authority must apply to HM Land Registry to register the charge.

The timeliness of registration remains the sole responsibility of the originating authority. We will only monitor this – see Quality checks carried out by HM Land Registry in live service.

Application to register a charge should be made as soon as possible after a charge has been created or comes into existence. There is a risk to both the originating authority and search users if there is any delay between a charge being created or coming into existence and application being made to register the charge.

3.1 Compensation claims

We have published details on how claims for compensation under section 10 of the Local Land Charges Act 1975 (as amended by the Infrastructure Act 2015) will be dealt with, where HM Land Registry may seek to recover compensation paid from the relevant originating authority.

The following issues may lead to a claim for compensation and to compensation being recoverable from the originating authority.

• Failure to apply to register a charge
• Failure to apply for the registration of charge in time for it to be practicable for HM Land Registry to avoid incurring liability
• An error made by the originating authority in applying to register a charge
• An error made by the originating authority in applying for the registration to be varied or cancelled

This protocol has been agreed between HM Land Registry, the Local Government Association and the Welsh Local Government Association.

4. Examples of good practice

4.1 Law (statutory provision)

HM Land Registry cannot provide legal advice as to whether a charge is a local land charge or whether a particular statutory provision should be used as part of the registration.

When choosing which statutory provision to enter in HM Land Registry’s live service, users should always look to enter the fullest form of the provision as possible, including any relevant sections, schedules or parts of the chosen Act.

Examples:-

• Town and Country Planning Act 1990 section 106
• Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 schedule 9 paragraph 28(9)

You can check the list of statutory provisions to see which ones are available or if an existing one has changed. You can request to have a statutory provision added to this list by using our Feedback form, however there may be reasons why HM Land Registry cannot grant your request.

4.2 Creation date

This is the date the local land charge was created – it is not the date the charge was received by the authority’s LLC team or registered with HM Land Registry.

Provision of the date when the charge came into existence is “mandatory” under rule 2(1)(b) of the Local Land Charges Rules 2018 where apparent from the instrument or document comprising the charge.

4.2.1 ‘Maintain’ users

For authorities using HM Land Registry’s Maintain system, there is a ‘creation date’ field available to use. The creation date should be the decision date or the date the document/order was signed off. HM Land Registry recognises that in rare instances, this date won’t be available therefore this field is optional. However, where the date is available it should be entered.

4.2.2 Software systems using HM Land Registry’s API

Providing consistent guidance is more complicated here as these software systems do not have a field for users to enter a valid creation date. Furthermore, the different software suppliers have interpreted this in different ways either by (i) providing the date that the record is added to the system (TLC), (ii) making the creation date equal to the registration date (NEC, DEF) or (iii) not providing anything (Arcus, Agile).

See below for more details;

4.2.3 Idox TLC users

HM Land Registry can (in most cases) identify other date fields within the Idox eco-system that can be used as a creation date. We can then write a rule to populate the creation date with this date both for migration and live service. Idox’s default ruleset populates the creation date with the date the charge is added to TLC, which does not meet our definition so we will remove this default rule and write individual rules for each authority to pull a date through from elsewhere, such rules will continue into live service. There may be a small percentage of charge types where this will not be possible.

4.2.4 NEC users

NEC have confirmed that pulling dates through from other parts of their system is not possible. NEC has agreed to add a new dedicated date field to record when the charge came into existence.

This will be separate from the system create date and any dates defined in the narrative free text field and will be available in the new Assure version of their land charges software.

4.2.5 Other software systems

We will add more information about these as we increase our understanding about the systems.

4.3 Creating spatial extents – general advice for Maintain users

All charges require a spatial extent to be provided at the time of registration. HM Land Registry’s Maintain service has various tools and functions to assist with the creation of spatial extents. ‘How to use the map’ pages are available within Maintain to explain each function.

Extents can be created using a polygon, circle, single line or single point or any combination thereof. Points would normally only be used for small areas where it is not practical to draw a polygon or circle.

For extents where a file already exists such as in an authority’s planning system, the ‘Upload the file’ function can be used. This is particularly useful for large or complex extents.

Where there are numerous properties affected by one charge such as smoke control order and the affected properties are all adjoining, we would expect a single polygon covering the whole area rather than a series of smaller polygons covering each individual property.

4.4 Tree preservation orders

Special care should be taken when creating spatial extents for tree preservation order (TPO) charges, especially when the tree or trees are close to the boundaries of individual properties. The spatial extent should be created in such a way that the TPO charge is revealed on a search of the immediately adjacent properties but without blighting any properties unnecessarily. This is to ensure the overhang of the tree is represented, remembering that the trunk/base of the tree may be located in one property, but the overhang or canopy might affect more properties.

Authorities are therefore encouraged, where possible, to map charges relating to an individual tree using the circle mapping function and to map clusters of trees using a polygon covering the enclosure containing the actual trees.

4.5 Section 38 agreements

It would appear from Garner’s Local Land Charges (14th edition) that these agreements are not registerable unless the agreement contains covenants under s33 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 in which case the covenants are registerable.

Once the authority has made the decision to register the agreement as a local land charge, they must carefully identify the land to which the s38 agreement applies and which should be clearly defined on the plan(s) to the agreement. This land should be reflected in the registration in the LLC register. Careful consideration should be given when deciding on the extent of the registration, including whether to include not only the roads but also adjoining properties and areas covered by the agreement.

4.6 Listed buildings and curtilage

Each listed building entry requires a spatial representation of the real-world object as listed (including any object or structure fixed to the building and any object or structure within the curtilage[1] of the building which, although not fixed to the building, forms part of the land and has done so since before 1st July 1948 (section1(5) Planning (Listed Building and Conservation Areas Act) 1990).

Examples include:

1. Where the listing is of an actual building or buildings, then a polygon showing the extent of the land or property affected by the charge must be provided, including any object or structure fixed to the building that is included in the listing.

2. Where the listing is of an object such as a milestone, boundary marker or gravestone, then point data is expected.

3. Where the listing is of a linear feature such as a harbour wall then a line is expected.

4. Where the listing includes any curtilage structure (that is not included within the extent provided for the principal listed building), that structure should be shown using the most appropriate of the three means set out.

5. Since 2011 Historic England listings include in most instances the spatial representation according to the above specification. (However, before 2011, Historic England often provided the listing only as point data).

To meet the requirements of HM Land Registry, the local authority must provide a spatial extent where available, or a plan showing the listing, as described above. The spatial extent or plan must include not only the extent of the principal listed building, but also any object or structure fixed to the building, or any curtilage object or structure included in the listing.

Where it cannot be clearly identified whether objects or structures within the curtilage of the principal listed building are included within the listing, the authority should provide a spatial extent that includes each curtilage object or structure as it is reasonably considered may be included in the listing, or:

1. Is sufficiently large to minimise the risk of not identifying land that may be affected by the charge, which could lead to liability issues.

2. Is not so large as to include land that is clearly not subject to the charge, which may lead to additional and unnecessary enquiries to the local authority.

In these cases, there is no need to add a note (as referenced below).

In exceptional circumstances where it is not possible to identify the curtilage structures or objects that may be included in the listing, the local authority should provide an extent to include what is reasonably considered to be the maximum possible curtilage of the principal listed building and add the following note to the register entry:

“Refer to [name of relevant local authority] for details of the particular buildings, objects or structures constituting the listed building for the purposes of this charge.”

Where this note is added because an exact spatial extent cannot be provided, additional enquiries are very likely to be made to the local authority.

The use of this note will strictly be in exceptional circumstances and if absolutely necessary.

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[1] Curtilage is legally defined as “the enclosed space of ground and buildings immediately surrounding a dwelling-house”, or “the open space situated within a common enclosure belonging to a dwelling-house.” Not all buildings have a curtilage.

4.7 Conservation covenants

Part 7 of the Environment Act 2021 contains provision for the creation of conservation covenants and was brought into force on 30 September 2022. A conservation covenant is a local land charge. Such covenants will arise from voluntary but legally binding agreements between a responsible body and a landowner, intended to conserve the natural or heritage features of the land.  The responsible body will be the Secretary of State or a body designated by the Secretary of State to be a responsible body for the purposes of the Act and the responsible body must apply for the registration of the charge in the local land charges register.

Further details about conservation covenants and responsible bodies can be obtained from Defra’s guidance

4.8 Other Originating Authority charges

While local authorities are the originating authority for most local land charges, there are many other originating bodies and organisations such as county councils and national parks. See our published list of Other Originating Authorities (OOAs) for further details. These OOAs also have access to HM Land Registry’s live service (where appropriate).

It’s important to remember that OOAs only need to apply to HM Land Registry to register, vary or cancel charges for areas covered by local authorities who have transferred to HM Land Registry’s LLC register – check this list for the latest details.

5. Data protection

You must ensure that your collection, use and disclosure of any personal data in connection with your use of the HM Land Registry local land charges register (including your use of the API or HM Land Registry’s Maintain system) complies with all applicable data protection laws.

6. Requesting additions or amendments to the live service

6.1 Feedback form

HM Land Registry will, from time to time, improve the live service for users by releasing enhancements and new features. For users of the Maintain service, the easiest way to request an improvement to the service is by using the Feedback form within the service itself.

Please note there may be technical or other reasons why a particular enhancement cannot be added to the live service. HM Land Registry reserves the right to only make changes to the live service as it sees fit.

For API users, you can either contact your system supplier to request an enhancement or use the feedback form through your link to the Maintain service.

7. Contact the LLC team

You should contact the relevant local authority if your enquiry relates to: 

• search result clarification 
• other documents relating to the search 
• one-off errors in search results, which arise because the local authority needs to amend or correct a charge entry 
• specific missing charges  
• further information relating to specific charges i.e. a financial charge 
• CON29 enquiries

Please use the following contact details for enquiries about local land charges live service only.

Email: SPITeam@landregistry.gov.uk

Online: Contact form

Telephone: 0300 006 0444 (between 8am and 5pm, Monday to Friday)

Postal address:

HM Land Registry Local Land Charges
Processing Team
PO Box 326
Mitcheldean
GL14 9BQ

For any IT related issues, please contact your own IT support services in the first instance.

Any HM Land Registry IT service-related issues can be reported to our IT Service Desk:

Tel: 0300 0060 400 (between 7am and 5pm, Monday to Friday)​

Email: isservicedesk@landregistry.gov.uk ​

The service desk will record your incident with the necessary details and will provide a target turn-around time and keep you informed of progress.​

8. Annex

Example Idox API error log