HM Land Registry

Exciting new developments at HM Land Registry

‘We are continually working to achieve our ambition of becoming the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data’ says HMLR.

About the author: John Abbott is director of digital, data and technology at HMLR.

As director of digital, data and technology, I oversee our technical teams from design through to development and ensure the successful delivery of our digital projects. Over the past few months, we have taken some exciting steps at HMLR, which will improve the way our customers do business with us. In this article, I provide an update on some of these developments and explain how we are using technology to advance how land is registered across England and Wales and support the wider property market.

Two new HMLR services launched

In November 2019, we launched two new services that make it easier for customers to register complex and interdependent transactions.

The Pre-submission Enquiry Service provides those managing complex commercial projects with technical and procedural guidance prior to an application being submitted. This should avoid unnecessary requests for information (requisitions), which often emerge later in the process.
Our Application Management Service gives customers end-to-end assistance, from the initial discussion prior to lodgement through to postcompletion support. With applications managed and coordinated in one location, customers can have confidence that their applications will be handled consistently. By working with our customers, we have been able to deliver services that provide greater certainty on how to approach complex transactions, further demonstrating our commitment to listen to customers and deliver the improvements and innovation that they want.

Improving our speed of service

Something we hear from our customers is their need to be better informed about the progress of the applications they submit. Our customers have asked specifically about applications that take longer to process such as non-developer applications, which are relatively few. Over 97% of the more straightforward applications we receive (which account for almost 90% of all registration applications) are completed within five working days.

However, we do understand the need for more information on processing times for applications that are critical to our customers’ businesses and clients. We are working hard to address this through recruitment, system updates, overtime and training and development. I would like to thank everyone who has provided us with feedback during this process.

Another milestone for Digital Mortgage

CILEx Journal readers may recall that we registered our 1,000th digital mortgage in October last year. The service was launched by HMLR to reduce paperwork and delays when applying for a remortgage. I am very pleased to announce that the 5,000th digital mortgage deed has now been registered.

As this service continues to build momentum, some customers are completing their remortgage process in three days, 18 days less than the average paper transaction. The service is currently available for people remortgaging their houses, with the plan to expand the service to all home owners in the future.

Enhancing our registers

The data that we hold in the land register is of immense value to the country. To unlock the fullest extent of that value, we are transforming the way we process and hold data to make certain it is simpler, faster and cheaper for our customers to find and update, all while ensuring its quality and integrity. We will also be able to introduce new digital services which we could not even imagine with the register as it was.

We believe that by finessing the format in which we hold and present our data - through a modern technology platform - we can deliver a faster, simpler and increasingly automated means for customers to search and update the information we hold, while narrowing the margin for error on both sides. This will, in turn, mean we process applications faster, reduce requisitions and provide better information for customers running searches.

Our current approach to data storage and format could be described as semi-structured. Some entries will be set out in registers, while other entries may need to be filed as associated documents. The information is both accessible and fit for purpose, but may need an extra level of human manipulation before it can be extracted.

We are looking to move to a more structured approach. Information would be stored in a more consistent, highly logical format, extracted from complex legal documents and filed separately according to consistent data standards. This would go a long way to enable access and uniformity, facilitating machine learning and application program interface access and integration. Once work on a prototype set of data is thoroughly tested, we will look to expand the scope of this change, seeking to migrate as much of the register to the new format as we can by 2022. This is just part of the work we are doing to improve the way we hold, and release our data in richer, more valuable formats while improving the way we work with our customers to provide a fast, simple and effective service.

A new cohort joins Geovation

Geovation is an initiative dedicated to supporting open innovation and collaboration using location and property data. As Geovation marked its 10th anniversary, HMLR, alongside Ordnance Survey, were delighted to announce the latest innovative start-up companies to join our Geovation Accelerator Programme in London.

Since launching in 2015, 84 start-ups have been helped to grow by the programme, which has seen them go on to create more than 200 new jobs and raise £23.3 million in third-party investment. The latest round of start-ups to join the programme are:

Veya: making important information available to homebuyers earlier in the conveyancing process;
Crowdhaus: modernising the property search market by providing the 21st century with ‘For Sale’ Smart Signs;
SociAbility: a mobile app that allows users to quickly and easily find detailed and reliable accessibility information for local social venues and shops;
Lairvue Ltd: a property viewing company providing a comprehensive seven-day viewing service to make sure property viewings do not get cancelled, postponed or missed;
Earthscope: finds, forecasts and assesses wildfires by harnessing AI, satellite images and the weather;
Hammer-Flights: provides an adaptive flight automation platform for drone service providers and in-house drone programs to collect quick and precise data’ and
Atmo: provides air quality monitoring to heavy industry to minimise exposure to personnel.

I am very excited to see how these start-up businesses can harness our data and benefit wider society through their innovation.