GovWire

Lower fees now introduced

Land Registry

March 17
00:00 2014

Under the Land Registration Fee Order 2013 we have simplified the fees for two of our most commonly used applications and have introduced a 50 per cent reduction in fee for many applications lodged electronically.

The electronic applications eligible for this 50 per cent reduction are:

  • transfers of whole
  • charges of whole
  • transfers of charges
  • some fixed fee applications.

The following applications are excluded from this reduction and continue to carry the full fee regardless of their method of delivery.

  • all applications for the first registration of a property or a rentcharge (Form FR1)
  • all applications for a caution against first registration of a property (Form CT1) or an application to alter a cautions register
  • transfer of part of a registered title (Forms AS3, TP1, TP2)
  • new lease of whole or part of a registered title where the lease will be registered separately
  • charge affecting only part of a registered title
  • all applications to register an adverse possessor of land (Form FR1, ADV1)
  • all applications to determine a boundary (Form DB)
  • all applications relating to commonhold properties (Forms CM1 to CM6, COE, CON1, CON2, COV, SR1)
  • applications for the return of a document (Form RD1).

Other changes

We also made the following changes to our Fee order

  • Scale 1 registrations of properties priced between 50,001 and 80,000 are now included in the lowest price band (now 0-80,000), retaining the lower fee of 40
  • The scale 1 fee for registrations of properties priced between 80,001 and 100,000 has been reduced from 120 to 80
  • A flat fee for all inspection of documents and official copy of document(OC2) applications has been introduced, removing the differences in fees between documents referred to in the register, not referred to in the register and leases. The fee will be 3 per document when applied for electronically and 7 per document when applied for on paper.

Our fee guides will help you to make any necessary changes to processes or systems to ensure the correct fees are paid with your applications.

New editions of our reference guides are now available on our fees pages and we have updated our fee calculator, which covers the main provisions of the Fee Order for applications received at our offices.

Why are we reducing our fees?

As a Trading Fund, Land Registry is required to set fees to break even. In 2012, our efficiency savings allowed us to reduce fees on average by 10 per cent. In our 2012/13 annual report we announced that we reduced our operating costs by a further 4 per cent. With further efficiency improvements expected, and with the number of transactions in the housing market expected to be higher than in 2011/12, we are in the position to share the benefits with our customers by reducing our fees once again.

As part of the Governments Digital by Default service standard, we are looking to encourage customers to adopt electronic submission of registration applications by offering lower fees. We are also pleased to take this opportunity to be simplifying and substantially reducing some of our most commonly used fees and so help customers engaged in the property transactions in question.

If you have any queries about applications not covered by our fee calculator, contact customer support.

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