ARTL cometh

Over 1,000 applications have been submitted and processed through Automated Registration of Title to Land (ARTL) since its launch in the late summer of last year. As readers will know, these have so far been standard securities and discharges. This is because the delivery of the system was scheduled to take place in two stages, the first stage comprising the functionality necessary to support security transactions and the second, transfers of title.

We are now in the midst of the final testing and acceptance stage of this functionality, which will then allow ARTL to fully support sale and purchase transactions, including the processing of stamp duty land tax (SDLT). The early positive indications of the test results are encouraging and we expect to accept delivery of this part of the system during February 2008.

What then? As readers will remember from the brief report of the November series of joint Registers of Scotland/Law Society of Scotland conveyancing conferences (Journal, December, 52), those firms that have been licensed to use ARTL will be signed up with the digital signature necessary to use the system. We will be contacting firms in January 2008 to let them know what to expect and when. Some of the actions that we will be taking are:

• January – write to all firms who have a licence;
• February – contact starts with firms to arrange sign-up visits;
• February – take delivery of the “transactional” module of ARTL;
• March – begin the process of signing firms up with digital signatures.

The order of sign-up will generally follow the order in which counties became operational on the Land Register:

• Renfrew, Dumbarton, Lanark, Glasgow, Argyll, Bute;
• East Lothian, West Lothian, Midlothian;
• Angus, Fife, Stirling, Kinross, Clackmannan, Perth, Kincardine;
• Aberdeen, Banff, Caithness, Moray, Orkney & Shetland, Ross & Cromarty, Sutherland, Inverness, Nairn;
• Ayr, Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, Wigtown, Berwick, Peebles, Roxburgh, Selkirk.

Lenders are an essential part of the ARTL community and have been highly supportive, and we will also

be focusing on signing up more lenders. The list of lenders currently signed up is:

• Abbey National
• Halifax Bank of Scotland
• Blackhorse
• Cumberland Building Society
• National Westminster Bank
• Nationwide Building Society
• Northern Rock
• Royal Bank of Scotland
• Scottish Widows

We will publish and maintain an up-to-date link on the ARTL website –

www.ros.gov.uk/artl – of lenders and solicitors that are signed up to use the system, along with a significant volume of useful background information, training material and support for preparing firms for the use of ARTL.

Some readers may recall that the initial aspiration had been to begin to make ARTL available for use in the late spring of last year. We did not quite meet this, due to some issues in constructing the system that proved slightly more complex than anticipated. This is why we are delivering ARTL in two distinct chunks, separating securities from title transfers. That move has served to minimise some important risks in the delivery of the system.

This, together with a measured approach to the speed with which the system has been made available to users, has been a central strand of our determination to provide ARTL for widespread use only once we consider it fit for purpose, so that user confidence is high from the outset. We are very pleased to have had the robust and consistent backing of the Law Society of Scotland for this approach, and are grateful to them and to the early user community for their support.

We are always more than happy to receive enquiries or feedback and these should be directed to our eServices team: eServices Support Team, tel: 0845 607 0160; fax: 0131 225 8498; email: eServices@ros.gov.uk