Keeper apologises for land registration delays

An apology for delays in the land registration now affecting almost 40,000 applications has been issued by the new Keeper of the Registers of Scotland, Jennifer Henderson.

In her first public speaking engagement since coming into post at the beginning of April, at the Law Society of Scotland’s Conveyancing Conference, Ms Henderson described the situation as "unacceptable and unsustainable". She continued: "It isn’t the standard of service that you should have to expect, and I understand the ongoing frustration it is causing. I’m sorry that things ever got to this stage."

She admitted that the 40,000 registration applications that fall outside Registers' service standards include 4,000 that have been with Registers for six to nine months, 7,000 for nine to 12 months, 8,000 for 12-15 months and 3,000 for over two years.

The Keeper promised: "I offer a commitment to you – today – that we are going to address the problem. I am pleased that we now have a plan of action to make real, demonstrable progress in clearing it."

Registers would be reporting regularly on progress in clearing the backlog, including via social media channels.

In her address Ms Henderson also confirmed: "Our recently published corporate plan set out our strategic goals for 2018-21, and reiterated our commitment to becoming a fully digital business by 2020. Registers is undergoing a complete digital transformation, moving us from a historically paper-based organisation to one that always does everything digitally as its first option."

She closed by talking about the importance of ongoing engagement with customers, saying: "Our successes in RoS have been in no small part down to the time that has gone into having open dialogues with the people who use our services and integral to ensuring they are well designed. We will be working to engage with you and we want to hear your feedback."