Two-year delays at the Land Registry — I need to move house

In May 2022 Boris Johnson was still prime minister and Liverpool won the FA Cup on penalties. It was also the month we bought the shared freehold of our home in London.

We had lived in one of three flats in a converted terraced house for six years and with the other leaseholders bought the freehold in a bid to cut our chronically useless managing agent out of the picture.

But two years later the new freehold had not been updated on the Land Registry — something that causes big problems when you come to sell a property, as we did this summer.

A lot can change in two years. We have had three more prime ministers since, yet our application was still pending on a desk at the Land Registry exactly 24 months after we had bought the freehold.

A blog on the government website states that as long as the application has been submitted to the Land Registry, “any delays in registering the property aren’t anything to worry about”.

I beg to differ. Cue panicked emails between us and lawyers to expedite the application — which the Land Registry will do at no cost if a delay puts a property sale at risk.

It adds extra stress to an already protracted home-buying process in the UK and our situation is not unique. For the most basic changes to existing property titles — such as updating mortgages against a property or changing names — it takes the Land Registry more than a month in 40 per cent of cases, according to its own data. If the application is more complex, the wait skyrockets.

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The Land Registry takes more than a year to process applications in 64 per cent of complex cases. This includes registering a property for the first time, dividing existing titles, lodging a new lease or multiple applications — it means property developers and social housing providers often face the longest waits, despite the country’s urgent need for new housing.

It also raises the risk of fraud if property or land is unregistered and title deeds have gone awry.

The delays began during the pandemic when the stamp duty holiday triggered a surge in applications. But the tax break ended in 2021 and the Land Registry is still catching up.

It has hired hundreds more caseworkers to tackle the backlog, but solicitors say they can lack consistency when processing applications. The Land Registry has been known to point the finger at conveyancers for mistakes on applications that hold up the process.Parts of the Land Registry are largely unchanged since its inception in 1862, including its fee structure, which is now being reformed. It says it is committed to going digital, although less than 30 per cent of applications to change the register are automated. It aims to increase this to 70 per cent, but not until 2027.

• My new share of a freehold flat came with a world of pain

Here lies the problem. The Land Registry receives about 20,000 requests a day to change the register or create a title, yet it has less than 7,000 employees. We move more frequently and in greater numbers than ever before, but still rely on an antiquated system of manual checks to register ownership.

To rub salt into the wound the Land Registry has temporarily closed its phone lines on a Friday, the busiest day of the week for completing property purchases. It says this will allow it to make a dent in its casework, and that you can use its online form and still get a response the same day.

It’s a tactic popular with government departments battling customer service backlogs — HM Courts & Tribunal Service now closes its probate helpline in the afternoons and HM Revenue & Customs has a penchant for shutting its self-assessment line for months at a time.

Anyone who is completing on a Friday will have to reach the Land Registry on its online form if their priority application has not materialised. Just what you need when the removal van is outside. One lawyer suitably dubbed this “panic day”

If the Land Registry wanted a quick win to spare homebuyers, sellers and their lawyers unnecessary stress it could do worse than to reopen their phone line on a Friday. I’m grateful we complete on a Wednesday.