On December 9th, HM Land Registry is making history by increasing access fees by £4, more than doubling the current price of £3 to access information on the register.
The £7 fee will be applied to all homeowners, buyers, sellers and anyone else needing to inspect an individual register or plan.
Compliance information site Moverly highlighted the impact this price hike will have as the register is the most commonly used service offered by the department particularly after the access fee has remained at £3 per view for a decade now.
The information included in this fee extends to tenure type, restrictions or easements, land survey results, title plans and caution plans of a property title.
With the £3 fee, the HM Land Registry collected an average of £20.2million a year, with Moverly estimating the increase could see an increase of £26.9million.
CEO of Moverly, Gemma Young, warned The Intermediary that homebuyers may find themselves particularly targeted by the rise.
She explained: “Homebuyers require a huge amount of information and documentation from different sources that must then be puzzled together to create an accurate and reliable picture of the property they are considering buying.
“That’s why providing up-front information can have a significant impact. The more a buyer knows about a property, the more quickly they can come to an informed buying decision.”
The expert highlighted that veterans in the property industry will understand increases like this “in the grand scheme of things” likely isn’t much of a surprise.
However, the sheer figures shows how many millions of people rely on information from the register every year.
This also isn’t the only fee the Land Registry is increasing as getting official copies of individual registers or plans will see the same rise from £3 to £7.
The registration, cancellation or rectification of an entry per name, whether it be an application or Agricultural Credits Service, will increase from £1 to £5.
All of these increases apply to digital services. Anyone planning to do physical applications and searches on paper will see an increase by £6 for searches and £5 for copies.
The department noted the more drastic rise for physical processing is to “align with the principle of higher fees for processing paper requests”.
