The Land Registry expects to pilot a full e-conveyancing system in 2006, chief executive Peter Collis told delegates in Birmingham.

Mr Collis said the registry had been identifying all stakeholders in the process, with a view to assessing those services they want and trialling those areas that have the greatest appeal.


Registry: electronic changes
The registry plans to have introduced electronic charges and electronic funds transfer as well as new e-conveyancing legislation within that timescale.


Outlining his vision for the registry, Mr Collis added that it hoped - 'if we achieve all that we want to' - to have registered all land in England and Wales by 2014. The registry will also aim to have registered 'many more' short-term leases by then, by bringing the seven-year threshold down to three years.


He said: 'At the end of the day, if this [e-conveyancing] is going to be taken up, it has got to be usable by the sole practitioner with a rural practice who only has a PC and access to the Internet. It has to be used by the sole practitioner as well as by the big firms.'


Mr Collis also revealed that the registry's e-discharges project - where a lender will notify the registry electronically that it has received its money and therefore that a charge can be lifted - will after successful tests with Abbey and Nationwide be rolled out to other lenders in the near future.


Meanwhile, Michael Coogan, chief executive of the Council of Mortgage Lenders, called for e-conveyancing to be made compulsory. 'E-conveyancing will bring its challenges but technology is here to help us and our clients. The council will be pressing for compulsion as soon as possible,' he said.


In Birmingham, the Law Society and the registry signed a memorandum of understanding to co-operate on the development of the e-conveyancing programme. The memorandum is intended to recognise formally the way in which the two organisations have worked together to improve the home-buying process through the electronic exchange of documents.