Land Registry: 860 customers generated no ARs
Most of the HM Land Registry (HMLR) customers will avoidable requisition (AR) rates of 20% or more are law firms, new figures have revealed.
However, the largest conveyancers are mainly able to keep rates at a low level.
Publication of the number of ARs generated by every customer is part of HMLR’s push to reduce the number of register change applications that “barring occasional human error, a diligent applicant carrying out the usual range of enquiries and searches will avoid”.
These include unexplained name variations, lodgement of illegible or incomplete deeds or documents, incorrect execution and/or witnessing of a deed or document, and incorrect fees.
Other common issues are no or incomplete information as to how a title is held by joint owners, identity verification information/evidence not provided or incomplete, plans references in the text of deeds or documents not shown on plans, no evidence provided of an attorney’s power to act, incomplete forms lodged, no address for service provided, and no or incomplete evidence of devolution of title following a death.
The data showed the number of ARs in the preceding six months lodged by customers that made 10 or more applications in that time. HMLR said last month that the average was 4.6%.
Of the 28 whose rate was 20% or more, 22 were law firms, although almost all of them made fewer than 30 applications over the six months.
The single worst rate was Oxfordshire law firm Dale & Dale, five of whose 11 applications (45%) led to ARs.
There were two customers, Southern Housing (six from 18) and Essex firm HSH Solicitors (five from 16) that scored over 30%.
At the other end of the scale, 860 customers (out of a total of 4,610) generated no ARs at all. Warrington-based Restons Solicitors, which acts for lenders and debt purchasers to recover debt, was the law firm with the highest volume – 729 applications – that caused no ARs.
The figures showed that only one of the five big players in the six months – Taylor Rose – scored notably worse than the average: ONP (44,620 applications, AR rate of 2%), Enact (40,523, 2.7%), Taylor Rose (22,642, 6.5%), Optima Legal (20,517, 1.9%) and Knights (18,077, 4.9%).
No other customer made more than 10,000 applications. Of those with an AR rate of at least 10%, the firm with the biggest caseload was Newport firm Hennah Haywood Law (1,509, 10.2%).
The AR data is seen as a proxy for the quality of a law firm’s services and both regulators and comparison websites are likely to look at how they can use it.
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