Applications up as Registers reports on "most significant year"
Registration applications rose nearly 5% in 2014-15, Registers of Scotland's "most significant year in recent history", according to its annual report and accounts published today.
The year saw the commencement, on 8 December 2014, of the Land Registration etc (Scotland) Act 2012, the biggest change in registration legislation in a generation.
"A significant focus of our activities over the first half of the year was on preparing stakeholders and staff for the changes ahead", Sheenagh Adams, Keeper of the Registers of Scotland, writes in her foreword to the report. "Following its implementation, we have been able to turn our attention to the many opportunities the 2012 Act creates.
"One of these is the completion of the Land Register, which Scottish ministers have invited us to complete by 2024, including registering all public land and properties by 2019."
Along the way, in 2014-15 Registers accepted over 400,000 applications to its registers, an increase of nearly 5% compared to the previous year. Land register applications increased by 9%, while sasine and CAJR (Chancery and Judicial Registers, including the Books of Council and Session) applications decreased by 11 and 3% respectively.
Since the designated day, more than 30% of submissions to the registers and reports services have been made electronically, compared to 5% before – a figure boosted by the new advance notice procedure. Registers aims to focus on growing this figure further over the coming years, "as we do everything we can to protect our environment and make registering property faster, easier, and more secure than ever before".
The report records "significant improvements" in turnaround times. Over the year, 55% of all applications for dealings with whole of a registered title were completed in just two days, but by the end of the year this had risen to 70%.
Retained surplus for the year fell from £11m in 2013-14 to £7.5m in 2014-15, due to a rise in costs from £51.6m to £58.9m compared with a rise in operations income from £62.6m to £66.3m.
Registers lists its main challenges in 2015-16 as embedding the 2012 Act into its business operations and using the commercial powers it provides to develop new products and services, benefitting customers and the economy; improving business efficiency, flexibility and responsiveness through a digital transformation programme; and accelerating the completion of the Land Register programme. To support this, the Keeper will use her new powers under the 2012 Act to encourage voluntary registration and to register property without an application through the process of Keeper-induced registration.