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Land Registry: Electronic Government

Volume 492: debated on Friday 15 May 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what plans he has for the future provision of electronic services by HM Land Registry. (275160)

The Land Registry is currently consolidating existing e-services onto a new technical platform. Within the current financial year the Land Registry expects to have moved 12,000 professional customers to this new platform, which will support the recent delivery of new electronic services, such as mortgages and redemptions. Welsh language versions of all these services will be made available shortly.

A new Business Gateway service to allow direct connection between customer business software and Land Registry systems without the need to re-key data will be launched as a pilot in June 2009.

Land Registry has recently launched a service developed jointly with the Legal Services Commission for the registration of statutory charges.

The next stage is to introduce a new service allowing electronic transfers of registered land, including the capability to lodge Stamp Duty Land Tax Returns to HMRC. The Land Registry anticipates that this service will be piloted in 2011. Once live, it will be possible for professional customers to apply for the electronic registration of a redemption, transfer and mortgage, so supporting the residential house buying process.

All services will be designed to comply with the appropriate accessibility standards.

To protect the integrity of the Land Register, access to these registration services is made available only to customers who have successfully proved their business and personal identity in accordance with the relevant security checks.