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The Land Registry office for England and Wales provides a particularly crucial service to land owners, mortgagees, those in the land sales business and those looking to buy

With improvement targets set by the Lord Chancellor, the Land Registry office is in place to provide up-to-date information in order to establish credible and confident interactions regarding security of titles on both sides of the market. Indeed, with the world’s largest database, not only is this a mammoth task, the billions of pounds exchanged over the market makes the system an obvious target for fraud. With an estimated £1m worth of property processed every minute, security is tight.

The Land Registration Act of 2002 stipulated that documents used in property transactions must become electronic in order to avoid delays that can occur during paper transactions. Some commentators estimate that this should come fully into effect by 2009.

However, this has inadvertently led to problems for the Land Registry, which had been attempting to implement a system whereby information was published online.

In response to concerns expressed by customers about the potential misuse of scanned documents available electronically from Land Registry Online and following an extensive review of the service, Land Registry has decided that documents referred to on the register, for example mortgage deeds and leases, should no longer be available electronically.

In early November 2007, online access to these documents was removed. Since then, members of the public wishing to inspect or have copies of any such documents must apply in writing to the Land Registry office.

In an online statement, the Land Registry stated that it “acknowledges that removing online access makes the documents less readily available, but believes this to be a positive step which will help to alleviate any risk of misuse.”

Mike Westcott-Rudd, Head of Corporate Legal Services, said: “People can be confident that their property ownership is safeguarded by the state because if someone is a victim of fraud, we have a comprehensive compensation scheme in place to put things right.

“However, fraud is a very serious issue and Land Registry gives it the highest priority. It is important to strike a balance between on the one hand making the system accessible, and simplifying the process of conveyancing, and on the other hand ensuring that appropriate safeguards are written into the system.

“While there is always a risk of fraud, we need to put this risk in context – of £870m fee income in 2005-06 and 2006-07, just under £12m was paid out in compensation for fraud or forgery claims.”

The news follows a recent report by the House of Lords which condemned the lack of security online.