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Building Land (Registrations)

Volume 657: debated on Thursday 5 April 1962

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1.

asked the Attorney-General if, in future, the number of first registrations of title of building estates where the price paid per acre exceeded £5,000 may be reported in the Annual Report of the Chief Land Registrar, so that more accurate evidence may be obtained of this aspect of inflation.

Surely the cost would be very slight, especially if done as a running matter? The information could be obtained as registrations were made. Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman recall that his Chief Registrar said that this was of vital importance for the purchasing of houses in the provinces? Why does not he want the correct information?

The Land Registry has no means of identifying building estates, and, even if it could, the work involved in recording the information asked for would be considerable. As the compulsory registration of land does not yet cover more than a comparatively small part of the country, the information would be of little value.

Why did the Chief Registrar make that observation in his Report? If the matter was of such an erratic nature, why did he put the weight of his Department behind drawing attention to it?

As I told the hon. Gentleman on 8th February, the statement in the Chief Registrar's Report was based not on a statistical record kept at the Land Registry, but simply on observations during the year.