ABSTRACT
Since 1990 (SI 1989/1347) all land in England and Wales has been subject to compulsory registration of title, meaning that title to any qualifying estate (freehold or leasehold with more than 21 years to run) must be registered on creation, conveyance, mortgage, or deed of gift. Nevertheless, almost 20% of titles remain unregistered. Some land, for example land held by the National Trust or the Church of England, is unlikely to be sold, leased, mortgaged, or given away. Also, as most land held by the Crown, including the foreshore, is held in demesne, there is no title to an estate in the land to register. Paragraph 2.9 of the Law Commission Report 271, 2001, declared that ‘the remaining unregistered land should be phased out as quickly as possible and that all land in England and Wales should be registered.’ The Land Registration Act 2002 (see Chapter 3) accordingly makes provision for: reducing the length of a qualifying lease from over 21 to over seven years; extending the opportunities for voluntary registration; and making it possible for the Crown to grant itself an estate in the land in order to trigger registration. Paragraphs 2.12 and 2.13 of the Report suggest that compulsory registration of all remaining unregistered land may be introduced in the not too distant future.
