Minimise the risk of rejection

The Fees in the Registers of Scotland Amendment Order 2010 introduced a fee of £30 for those applications that did not meet the requirements for acceptance on to the Land Register application record. Since then, the number of applications that have to be rejected at intake has fallen sharply, from roughly 10% of all applications prior to introduction to about 3% (and, as explained below, not all of these attract a rejection fee). We are very grateful to the legal profession for their response to the fee.

Avoiding rejection

The majority of rejected applications are due to basic errors relating to the application forms. Namely, these errors are: not submitting a form, submitting the wrong form, not completing the form or not signing the form. There are a number of reasons as to why the wrong form is submitted, but here are details on two of the more common:

Transfer of a one half pro indiviso share in a registered interest. Some applicants consider this to be a transfer of part, and consequently submit the application with a form 3. The application is correctly a dealing with whole (as the whole property is being transacted against), and as a result a form 2 should be used.

Where the subjects being disponed are registered but the granter is retaining part and the description is of the registered subjects “under exception”. It is not unusual for a form 2 to be submitted; however, this is classified as a transfer of part, requiring the application to be submitted under cover of a form 3.

Rejections not charged for

Not all applications that are returned to solicitors at intake fall within the ambit of the rejection fee. Those applications that we identify as being affected by the Title Conditions (Scotland) Act 2003 are subject to additional upfront checks. This upfront check was introduced some years ago following dialogue with the Law Society of Scotland. The aim of this is to prevent the cancellation of an application which has been placed on the record because of a technical failure to comply with a particular requirement of the Act.

This is a service that the Keeper provides free of charge. For such applications, the rejection fee applies where the application does not meet the basic dual registration requirements of the Act, but does not apply where the application is returned because of another technical defect in the deed related to the Act. (Unless there are other reasons for rejection, a fee does not apply to those returned applications.)

Guidance for multiple applications

We recognise that some applications are more problematic than others. Where an application affects 10 or more properties, we invite solicitors to contact our Intake team to discuss presenting the application for registration.

The complexities of multiple applications are such that we will work with the solicitor in advance of submission to ensure all the constituent parts of the application are in order.