Why is the government privatising the Land Registry?

Joe Wright, 11 June 2014

No matter your beliefs about what government should and should not do, privatising the Land Registry simply beggars belief. For those unfamiliar with the Land Registry, it is the government body, part of BIS, which registers the ownership of land and property in England and Wales. It has done so since 1862, documenting ownership and changes, mortgages or leases that affect it.

The Government’s rationale for selling off the department is that privatisation will make it more innovative and help the UK create one of the best processes for selling properties in the world. But as far as the process for buying or selling a property goes, the Land Registry is generally considered a great asset. The Registry’s own figures show it has a 98 per cent satisfaction rate with the people who use it and at zero cost to the taxpayer. Indeed, it made a surplus of £98.7 million last year, which was returned to the Treasury. It does this by charging minimal fees for a service which cannot be competitive given that there can only be one land registry. What is more, if the Government wishes to improve the buying and selling process of property, changing the status of the Land Registry is one of the most bizarre places to start.

Aside from a weak justification for this move, there has also been widespread anger with the consultation process. The consultation describes three options: a joint venture between the government and a private company, letting a private company run it as a so-called Govco (government-owned company), or keeping the Registry in the public sector. However, minutes of a meeting of the department’s board leaked to the Guardian suggest the decision has already been made with detailed plans of a joint venture being discussed. KPMG has valued a joint venture as worth £1.225bn to the government, higher than the £1.1bn GovCo evaluation. Business Secretary, Vince Cable, is said (by the Guardian) to be opposed, arguing a need for tighter control of any potential private sector partners.

Most importantly there are considerable risks with the move which the government has done little to allay. The deal has come at a time when there are proposals (announced in the Queen’s Speech) to centralise responsibility for local land charges from the local authority to the registry. If that happens, and the Registry is privatised, it will create a private monopoly with a new company being able to charge what it likes for access to the data. Aside from monopolising crucial services without public oversight, this will transfer a huge amount of personal data – information about your home – to private ownership. This itself may well be in danger of breaching EU legislation on data access and could lead to huge fines (see www.savethelandregistry.co.uk for more details).

Plus it has led to industrial action (more than 3,000 staff are taking part in a 48-hour strike which will hit all 14 Land Registry offices across England and Wales). And all for what? It would be too easy to describe this as another example of government fetish for privatisation. But at the same time it is very hard to find any other reason for it.