Commentary on Sections Her Majesty’s Land Registry Section 34 and Schedule 5: Transfer of responsibility for local land charges to Land Registry
176.Local land charges are generally in the nature of restrictions or prohibitions on a particular parcel or parcels of land, binding on successive owners and occupiers of the land, which either secure the payment of money or limit the use to which the land may be put. Local land charges would not normally be disclosed by inspection of the land or an investigation of the register of title to the land (or the title deeds where the land is unregistered). For the protection of purchasers, there is a duty to register them. The registers involved are open to public access.
177.Under the current legislation – the Local Land Charges Act 1975 (LLCA 1975) – local land charges are entered in local land charges registers, open to public inspection and administered by each local authority in England and Wales in relation to the local land charges that affect the land within their respective administrative areas. The way in which the local registers are administered, in particular as to whether and to what extent the registers have been computerised, varies widely across England and Wales, as do the fees charged for searches of the register in England (where individual local authorities have power to set the fees for their own areas, subject to general guidance from the Lord Chancellor). Following investigation of the position by the Land Registry, and a consultation exercise which ended on 9 March 2014, the Government has decided that responsibility for its administration should be transferred from the local authorities in England and Wales to the Land Registry. The Land Registry should then provide a composite fully computerised local land charges system accessible to users by electronic communications.
178.Schedule 5 Parts 1 - 4 sets out the amendments required to the relevant legislation and provides for the necessary transitional arrangements to enable Land Registry to assume responsibility for the registration of local land charges from the existing local authorities in England and Wales. Part 1 sets out amendments to the LLCA 1975; Part 2 sets out amendments to the Land Registration Act 2002 (LRA 2002); Part 3 sets out amendments to other legislation; and Part 4 sets out the necessary transitional provisions.