HM Land Registry are increasing their fees for information services from Monday 9 December 2024 for the first time in more than ten years. This includes a 133% increase in fees from £3 to £7 for obtaining digital copies of title registers, plans and pre-completion priority searches.

It is worth noting that fees for registration services, such as the registration of charges or land transfers remain the same. 

HM Land Registry has advised that the fee uplift ‘reflects the increased costs of running and improving HM Land Registry’s services, as well as plans to increase digitalisation and transformation of data. However, even with this increase, the majority of customers will still be paying less than they were in 1992.'

It is envisioned that plans to increase digitalisation and facilitate the transformation of data held by the Land Registry will assist with reducing the extensive backlog of Land Registry applications and enable a more efficient property registration process in the long term, which will be well received by many involved with the registration process.

However, in the short term, this will mean a sharp increase in disbursements for all property transactions, with a particular impact on registered providers of social housing involved in large-scale portfolio charging and stock rationalisation transactions. 

For any registered providers looking to commence large-scale portfolio transactions shortly, please get in touch to discuss progressing the collation of title documents before Monday 9 December 2024. 

Further details on the HM Land Registry fee increases for information services can be found here.

For more information

For more information on the increase in fees or on large-scale portfolio transactions shortly, please contact me.