Mapping out e-conveyancing

The Land Registry's consultation paper on e-conveyancing does not address shortcomings in the registration process, argues Louis Charlebois

Conveyancing, in computer terms, is communication and registration.

As matters stand, in a paper world, the Land Registry does not become involved in the conveyancing process until instruments are submitted for registration, searches of its records apart.

To put the current paper transactions involving the Land Registry on computer means that the practitioner would create an electronic deal and send it to the Land Registry in accordance with an electronic format approved by the registry.

The paper trail would stop with the practitioner who would have to keep the paper record for examination in case of error or dispute.

The quality of information on the register is maintained now by the inspection of each deal at the Land Registry before it is approved for registration.

Will each practitioner under e-conveyancing be allowed to change the register unilaterally with the possible intervention by the registrar or by other interested parties if an error is perceived? Will anyone sitting at any computer in any Internet caf be able to alter the register? I hope not.

A 96-page consultation paper on e-conveyancing issued by the Land Registry unfortunately does not cover this, the most fundamental issue that arises in relation to the Land Registry and e-conveyancing.

If you think that is bad, it gets worse.

The Land Registry has no expertise in conveyancing, because conveyancing does not come within its jurisdiction.

The Land Registry does land registration.

The Law Society does conveyancing.

But the Society is not in the loop.

There are two forewords to the consultation paper, from the Lord Chancellor and the Chief Land Registrar, and none from the Society.

The Lord Chancellor sets policy and it is clear that he directed the Chief Land Registrar to take on the task of e-conveyancing.

That was a big mistake.

There are two classes of record that are basic to any land registry: title, which covers ownership, and any restriction on ownership; and the parcel record, which covers the physical extent of ownership.

The Land Registry makes no attempt at maintaining a parcel record of survey accuracy.

No other Grundbuch or Torrens system anywhere takes the same view, because it does not make sense to maintain an imprecise record.

And that means that we have the worst land registration system in Europe.

It is not clever to give these guys new jurisdiction over conveyancing.

The Land Registry should not only be putting together a large- scale general map, retaining survey accuracy, it should be trying to complete the registration of every parcel in England and Wales.

Including leases of seven years rather than 21 years is going sideways as far as the completion of the parcel record is concerned.

Public authorities should be required to register their land forthwith, providing surveyed parcels.

And the National Land Information Service and the National Land and Property Gazetteer should be required to use the Land Registry's parcel database instead of Balkanising the problem by creating two parcel databases, giving us three separate conflicting authoritative parcel records.

Issuing a provisional title for first registrations is good.

Qualified title has always been on the books but has almost never been used.

That is how, in Australia, it was possible to move quickly to the completion of registration of all the land in the jurisdiction.

But I have met no one on the Law Society's conveyancing committee, the Law Commission, or the Land Registry who is familiar with the Australian systems.

Let us make it an option available now for all first registrations.

We do not want the seller's pack, the contract, the chain - not now the subject of registration - to be determined by a Land Registry bureaucracy without consultation and approval from the Society.

Louis Charlebois is a Canadian lawyer who also practised as a solicitor in Australia before qualifying as a solicitor in England and Wales.

He was Registrar-General (chief land registrar) for the Northern Territory of Australia, a system he computerised and later worked as Senior Legal Officer for the New South Wales Land Registry