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Landowners advised over land registration

Farmers and other landowners should register their land now to avoid disputes in the future, say solicitors and the Land Registry itself.

Many people believe land can only be registered when it changes hands but this is not so. 'Voluntary' registration is possible and indeed, encouraged by discounts for first time registration. 

Anne Elliott, partner at Darlington law firm Latimer Hinks says that there are a number of benefits and incentives in voluntarily registering land.

Anne explained:  “Having land registered generally speaking provides the ultimate guarantee of evidence of ownership.  It is also the most effective way to bring all documentation up to date and allows easy access to details online.”

“Land and properties with unregistered titles can cause unnecessary delays and additional expense to owners who wish to dispose of all or part of their holdings.    Deals involving unregistered land can take considerably longer to complete than those where the details of ownership are already registered with the Land Registry.”

Selling all or part of a land holding always means that the full nature of the title to the land has to be investigated.  Unregistered title deeds may have been in the same family for many years and may run to many hundreds of pages.  In that time maps will have changed and memorandas of sale or deeds of grant of rights over land may have been finalised but have become separated from the deeds or the details may be incomplete.

This can be particularly difficult to deal with in the case of the death of the owner/ occupying landowner.  The beneficiaries of his estate may well not know the boundaries of the land and it can take many hours of legal work (and inevitable delay and expense) to establish with certainty what is actually owned.

A survey by the BBC in early 2006 found that 50% of land in England and Wales was still unregistered.  The Land Registry recently announced a target of registering all the remaining unregistered land across England by the year 2012 and is trying to simplify matters (and providing a fees concession!). 

Anne continued:  “Registering land should make any transaction quicker, easier and cheaper to deal with and it also defines the boundaries by reference to the current OS field numbers.”   

“Over a number of years, disputes may have arisen over the exact extent of the land holdings and registration should root out any claims for adverse possession, rights of way or any other easements which are being claimed by third parties.   It also negates the problem of lost, stolen or destroyed deeds.”

Unregistered landowners also run the risk of losing areas of their property if an adjoining owner registers his title first.  The Land Registry may assume the correctness of mapping if they have not been made aware of the extent of adjoining ownerships, even if previous mapping on earlier title documents is poor or boundaries are badly drawn.

Said Anne, “It is well worth considering voluntarily applying to register your land.  It may cost in the short term but should save time and money and potential disputes in the longer term.”