The land registration gap leads to delays & claims, writes Phil Murrin. How can practitioners minimise the risks?
- The Land Registry’s latest strategy paper recognises that processes are slow and complex, but there is no quick cure.
- Against this background, practitioners are seeing claims involving registration gap problems.
- This article advises how firms can understand the extent of their registration gap profile, and address that potential exposure accordingly.
On 5 November 2025, HM Land Registry issued its Strategy 2025+ report, setting out its vision for the next 10 years. This was issued in the context of the troubling expansion we have seen in recent years in relation to the registration gap—the time between the application to register and the registration itself. With reports (including a Homemove study in March 2025) indicating that in complex cases, parties are seeing a delay of up to two years, the release of the report is timely.
However, the report recognises that for many, processes are ‘slow and unnecessarily complex’. It also demonstrates that the problems are deep-rooted and there
