Land is a vital commodity. So much so that a whole branch of the law has grown up around the subject and it even has its own central registry. It is nonetheless possible for land to be “lost”. A strip of land might be mistakenly left over after the sale of several plots with the owner not realising he has not disposed of it or a land owner might without his descendants (if he has any) knowing that he owned a particular piece of land. It was long since decided that land is too valuable to be allowed to go to waste and so the doctrine of adverse possession grew up to combat the risk.

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Thanks to the Land Registration Act 2002 and its predecessor the Land Registration Act 1925 it is now compulsory when land in England and Wales changes hands or is mortgaged to register the land with the Land Registry, the government department responsible for maintaining records of land ownership and interests in land. If the land is already registered as a result of a previous transaction, the change of ownership (or new interest created) must be registered in order for it to have legal effect.

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Before I go any further, I should make clear that the purpose of this article is explain how home rights (the right of a spouse or civil partner to occupy the matrimonial/partnership home) are protected at Land Registry. It is by no means a general commentary on the rights of a spouse or civil partner on the breakdown of the relationship. It is not intended to be professional legal advice and should not be treated as such. If you need advice following the breakdown of a relationship then you should seek the advice of a solicitor specialising in family law.

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The Land Registry is the Government department which is responsible for recording the ownership of and interests affecting land in England & Wales. It provides a number of services including processing applications to register land or to register a change of ownership of land and interests affecting land, such as mortgages, rights and covenants.

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The term “lease” comes up a lot in conveyancing but there is often confusion as to what exactly it is, and what it will contain. A lease is essentially an agreement whereby one party agrees to lend something to another party in return for some form of payment. It can relate to anything – a car, machinery, a television. In conveyancing transactions, the lease will be of land.

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As well as describing the extent of a property and who owns it the title deeds (or land registry records for registered land, for the sake of this article we will use the terms “title deeds” and “land registry records” interchangeably) also contain information as to any third party interests affecting the property. These are things like easements, restrictions, notices, mortgages and covenants. Please note that this article deals only with freehold covenants. The rules relating to covenants in leases differ in terms of when and how they can be enforced and the consequences for breach.

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This is a question I am often asked. When it comes to obtaining a copy of the register of title for a particular property the Land Registry offer two options; the Official Copy of the Register of Title or the Register View. The general public can be forgiven for confusing the two; they look very similar and appear on the face of it to contain the same information.

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Unless you’ve been out of the country for the last 12 months or so, you couldn’t have failed to hear about “HS2”, the high speed rail link connecting the north of England to the South. HS2 will initially run between Birmingham and Land and will later, subject to further Government approval, extend to Leeds and Manchester.

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Time is running out for property purchasers to take advantage of the first time buyer stamp duty relief. The temporary relief, which means that anyone who qualifies as a first time buyer and is paying between £125,001 and £250,000 for their property does not have to pay any stamp duty, was introduced in 2010 by the Labour Government in a bid to boost the flagging housing market by encouraging in more first time buyers.

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Welcome to our land-registry-documents.co.uk blog. This is the place where you will hear about the latest updates to our services, news from the property market and developments in the world of residential conveyancing. As it is a blog, you can also have your say and we welcome your feedback.

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