Securities: no more sasine

Closure of Sasine Register to standard securities

It is now less than a month until the Sasine Register will close to standard securities and a voluntary registration for the Land Register will be required. As well as engaging with stakeholders in the legal and remortgage communities, there has been an extensive programme of training within RoS to ensure that these applications will be dealt with smoothly upon receipt.

We know that some customers will require a plan to be drawn to allow their application to go ahead. Although we expect this change to affect only a small number of applications each year, we want our customers to face the minimum of disruption. To support this we will shortly launch a new plans drawing service to allow a map to be created for a new Land Register title.

In addition, to support this change, new functionality has been added to our e-forms. This has been released in advance of the commencement date to allow e-forms users to familiarise themselves with the application process.

When submitting voluntary registrations via e-forms, you will be prompted to confirm whether a standard security affecting the same extent accompanies the voluntary registration. This question is defaulted to “no”.

If you select “yes”, the voluntary registration fee will default to zero irrespective of the value of the property.

Avoiding rejections

Rejected applications are expensive and inconvenient for both solicitors and RoS. We are looking at our internal and external processes and consulting with our customers as well as the Law Society of Scotland’s Property Law Committee, to understand properly why mistakes are made and how they can be avoided.

We have run a number of first-registration workshops for practitioners and these covered the different requirements for various types of property. A section that focused on avoiding rejections was also included.

Feedback has been positive and participants have welcomed the help and guidance we are able to offer. You can watch the most recent workshop on our website via our blog pages (see www.ros.gov.uk/about-us/ros-blog).

We plan to hold more of these workshops, and if you are interested in attending one of these future workshops, please contact account.managers@ros.gov.uk

We have also added further guidance in the form of FAQs on our website to guide the customer through the first registration process, and these cover in detail the main causes of rejection and how to avoid them.

In January 2016 we brought in a first registration checking service. This new service ensures that all the required elements for an application for a deed over an unregistered plot are present and so reduces the risk of rejection.

With a clear check, RoS will retain the application and enter it onto the application record. To find out more about this service, go to www.ros.gov.uk/services/application-checking-service

In response to feedback from customers, where the cause of rejection is an overlap with a neighbouring property we are now providing prints showing the overlap so that customers can immediately see and begin to fix the problem.

We have changed the rejection letters we issue to make the reason for rejection as clear as possible, along with what actions you should be taking before resubmitting.

These new letters have met with a positive response with the customers who have seen them.

We are keen to know what you think, so please contact customerservices@ros.gov.uk with your comments.