HM Land Registry has published its Strategy 2025+ plan, aiming to use digital services, expertise and accessible property information to “unlock a better, faster and less stressful property market”.
In the report’s foreword, chair Neil Sachdev said: “Over the next five years, HM Land Registry will play a key role in supporting government’s ambitions – from building new homes and regenerating places, to unlocking clean energy infrastructure and transforming planning.
“By simplifying and accelerating property transactions, and making our data more accessible and trusted, we are helping drive economic growth, reduce friction for citizens and businesses, and build confidence in the housing market.”
He said this will be achieved by going “further and faster” in its digital transformation, and would require “new skills and new thinking”.
Land Registry said progress had been made since its strategy plan in 2022 such as the introduction of automation, but said the property system was still too slow and a digital property market would resolve this.
It said it wanted to provide easily accessible services for people to make contact with and secure property rights and information supported by digital systems.
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It plans to use “agreed data standards” to digitise, sort and share data while maintaining security and integrity.
Land Registry will develop a land register to allow property information to be shared as spatial data, which can be viewed and used by people.
It will also create systems to support its services and give better protection for property owners, while making buying and selling easier. This will rely on technology, digital security investments and automation driven by artificial intelligence (AI).
“We will eventually automate more and create better, more secure ways to verify people digitally, further speeding up our services. This will build resilience in our services that are most impacted by market fluctuations and enable our expert people to focus on better supporting more complex customer needs,” Land Registry said.
By 2030, Land Registry will enable customers to see where they are in the transaction process and how long it will take, and its data will be integrated into customers’ digital platforms to speed up transactions.
It will simplify how people pay for its services and make costs clearer, and give “quick and easy access” to land and property information, as well as allow people to update information online.
Land Registry also aims to use “advanced data intelligence” to see how its services are working and resolve issues in real time.
By 2035, the service hopes it will be easier for people to update changes to property ownership details, and will have “flexible, fully tailored systems” and people support for customers.
To reach this aim, Land Registry will work with the government and the property sector to develop and promote the use of secure and convenient methods of digital identity checking and e-signatures.
It aims to use technology and AI to automate its services by 2030, including simple requests to change the register to remortgage or complete straightforward sales of registered properties. By 2035, Land Registry said the availability of information would be “near-instant and accurate”.
Land Registry will also combine its data with health and crime data to deliver public health improvements, prevent fraud and criminal activity and solve crimes.
