Guidance

Local Land Charges Programme

Updated 14 September 2018

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hm-land-registry-local-land-charges-programme/local-land-charges-programme

Every local authority in England, with the exception of county councils, is required to hold a local land charges register that records obligations affecting properties within their administrative area. Under the Infrastructure Act 2015 responsibility for the 326 registers will be transferred to HM Land Registry in a phased approach beginning in summer 2018.

This is a historic step forward in the Government’s ambition to make the home-buying process simpler, faster and cheaper. It is also an important part of our Business Strategy to help improve the entire conveyancing process.

Our new digital Local Land Charges service

HM Land Registry is working in partnership with local authorities in England to standardise and migrate local land charges register information to one accessible place.

Anyone can access our new Local Land Charges service through our Search for local land charges service. Business customers can also access it through their portal accounts or Business Gateway. Each search result provides details of entries on the Local Land Charges Register relating to the land or property concerned.

Local authorities will continue to provide replies to CON29 enquiries, such as nearby road schemes or outstanding notices, which may affect a purchaser’s decision whether to proceed. Once a local authority’s local land charges data has been migrated to HM Land Registry, you will no longer be able to get local land charge search results from that local authority.

Using our new service, you will have the option of downloading a personal search for free or an official search for £15. Alternatively, you can use a search provider who will access our Local Land Charges service for you.

The benefits are:

  • guaranteed search results provide the highest level of due diligence
  • the full spatial extent of every charge appears on the search result
  • standard £15 fee for each search, providing a reduction to the current national average price
  • consistent quality of data provides clear and accurate search results
  • instant online search result with 24/7 access to the data, reducing delays in receiving searches
  • unlimited repeat searches for six months to check for any new charges before completing a transaction
  • search history dashboard giving you access to your previous searches at any time

Read about what the service offers.

Watch a video about our new Local Land Charges service (1 minute 14 seconds)

Creating a national Local Land Charges Register

Local authorities

Throughout the course of 2018 and 2019, the following local authorities’ local land charges data will transfer to HM Land Registry. This list is subject to change.

Local authorities Transfer date
Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council to be announced
Blackpool Council to be announced
Carlisle City Council to be announced
City of London Corporation 8 October 2018
Council of the Isles of Scilly to be announced
East Lindsey District Council to be announced
Liverpool City Council 3 September 2018
London Borough of Harrow to be announced
London Borough of Lambeth to be announced
North West Leicestershire District Council to be announced
Norwich City Council to be announced
Peterborough City Council to be announced
Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council to be announced
St Helens Council to be announced
Stevenage Borough Council to be announced
Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council to be announced
Thanet District Council to be announced
Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council to be announced
Warwick District Council 11 July 2018

When the transfer of data from an individual local authority to HM Land Registry is completed, local authorities will still be required to apply, vary and cancel charges in the new register. They will also need to provide source documents on request and respond to additional enquiries from customers following HM Land Registry’s issue of a search result.

Phase 1 of the new service will be rolled out over the next few months with up to 26 local authorities’ local land charges registers transferred to HM Land Registry by March 2019. The timing of future phases has not been decided yet and will be subject to decisions by Ministers. Because of the scale and complexity of the service change, as considered in our Regulatory Impact Assessment, this data migration could take up to 7 years.

Local land charges

Local land charges searches are normally required in the property-buying process. Most local land charges are restrictions or prohibitions on the use of the property. The local land charges search will reveal whether a property is subject to a charge if that charge has been registered. The property will be subject to it regardless of whether it is registered or not. Other searches will need to be conducted to determine whether a property has an obligation on it.

Common obligations protected as local land charges

The common obligations protected as local land charges include:

  • planning permissions (these form the majority of charges)
  • listed buildings
  • conservation areas
  • tree preservation orders
  • improvement and renovation grants
  • smoke control zone conditions
  • light obstruction notice conditions

Local authorities maintain a local land charges register for their administrative area. The records are held in a range of formats such as paper, microfiche and electronic. Prices also vary considerably and this has led to an inconsistent service for customers depending on their postcode.

A local land charge is created by either local authorities or other bodies with the powers to do so, known collectively as originating authorities.

Pre-migration guide

Local authorities must complete a number of tasks prior to the migration of their local land charges data.

Read the pre-migration guide.

New burdens information

Our new burdens information sets out our approach to implementing the new burdens doctrine for the transfer of local land charges from local authorities to our new digital local land charges register.

Public consultation

As implementation requires secondary legislation, we launched a public consultation on the draft Local Land Charges Rules 2017, which ran until 11 July 2016.

Local Land Charges (PG79)

Read our practice guide 79: local land charges for information on:

  • applications to register a local land charge or to vary or cancel the registration of a local land charge
  • applications for an official search or personal search of the local land charges register

Local Land Charges fees

The information in our guide: Local Land Charges fees is a summary of the Local Land Charges Fees (England) Rules 2018. The guide also refers to the Local Land Charges Rules 2018.

Our partners

Our programme partners are:

Contact

Contact the programme team: llcproject@landregistry.gov.uk.

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