Wtf has been happening?

​In 2014, the coalition government dropped its plans to sell off the Land Registry after a campaign led by a range of groups, including high street lawyers and solicitors.

But, in 2016, the Land Registry came under threat from privatisation again. You helped us to fund a report written by the New Economics Foundation showing what a bad idea this would be for our economy. The report was quoted six times in a House of Commons debate in June.

"As a recent report from the New Economics Foundation made clear, in the long term, the sale of the Land Registry would result in a significant loss of income to the Treasury.” Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham, Labour)

Thankfully, the government confirmed in its Autumn Statement 2016 that the Land Registry would not be sold off!

We love the Land Registry

The Land Registry consistently reports high levels of your approval – with a customer satisfaction rate of 94%. With rates as high as this, it is unsurprising that nearly 70% of you want the service to remain in public hands.

Public ownership works

The Land Registry is a natural monopoly, which means it makes sense to keep the service under public ownership rather than split it up and sell it off. This is why a competition watchdog opposed the Land Registry sell off. If we sold off the Land Registry, then in just 25 years time you would be losing out on money. The state guarantee means that you are more protected from errors and the service is more accountable than if we had a privatised Land Registry.

To continue to make life easier for consumers, the Land Registry is also planning moves to increased digital services. In the Autumn Statement 2016, the government admitted that this would be easier if the Land Registry was kept in public hands.

“Following consultation the government has decided that HM Land Registry should focus on becoming a more digital data-driven registration business, and to do this will remain in the public sector” Autumn Statement 2016

The proposal to make Land Registry data free and easy to access would be brilliant as it would allow you to see who really owns our land. This idea has also been strongly supported by the housing charity Shelter, who argue more open data would help the market work efficiently and more homes to be built.

We saved the Land Registry

After joining together to campaign, the government has dropped its latest plans to sell off our Land Registry. This is great news, but we need to make sure these plans are never put back on the table.