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Practice Guide 41 – Developing estates – registration services –
Supplement 2 – Estate plan approval
 
Updated: March 2013

Update

This edition of the supplement replaces the September 2012 edition. Section 3 has been updated to confirm that Land Registry can accept an estate plan for approval via email from customers as well as by post.

Scope of this guide

This supplement gives an overview of Land Registry’s estate plan approval service to those involved in the registration of developing estates. We have aimed the supplement at developers, their legal advisers and surveyors and you should interpret references to ‘you’ accordingly.

1 Abbreviations and terms used

In this guide:

‘PDF’ means Portable Document Format.

2 Introduction

We have designed the estate plan approval system to simplify and speed up the supply of official copies, official searches and subsequent registrations while the site is active. It also offers the following advantages

  • Negotiations for the sale of plots can proceed without an official copy of the developer’s title plan.

  • You can make applications in form OC1 for certificates of inspection of the title plan and official search applications, by referring to the plot number on an approved estate plan rather than supplying a plan with each application.

  • Speedier negotiations between the developer and purchaser on individual plot sales.

3 How to apply

Estate plan approval may follow the estate boundary approval service or you may apply for it independently. At the earliest possible stage, send Land Registry two copies of the estate plan showing the final layout. An estate plan can be sent for approval via email as a PDF attachment, as well as by post.

Land Registry will inform you of any problems that may have arisen, and work towards resolving them in advance of sales activity. When there aren’t any problems, we will give formal approval and we will return one copy of the plan. We will retain the other copy at the Land Registry office. The approved plan (or extracts) can then form the basis of the transfer or lease plans thus providing continuity through the plot sale. Where you have used the estate boundary approval service, you should base the estate layout plans on the same plan.

This approval does not confirm that development planning permission has been sought or obtained. Planning permission is dealt with by local planning authorities and not by Land Registry. In some cases we may decline to approve a draft estate plan if we consider that granting approval may mislead members of the public into believing that future development is likely, such as when approval is sought for plans for what appears to be a land banking investment scheme (where a landowner divides their land into many small plots to sell and they claim that the plots have good investment value, usually in the expectation of future development).

The detailed requirements for estate plan and surveying specification are set out in Supplement 5 to this practice guide.

Please direct all requests for estate plan approval to the Land Registry office serving the area in which the development is situated.

4 Commonhold

Practice Guide 60 – Commonhold – section 4.3 The CCS plan gives details of the requirements and specifications for commonhold community statement plans.

5 Enquiries and comments

Please direct any queries relating to estate plan approval service to your local Land Registry office.

Practice Guide 51 – Areas served by Land Registry offices is available free of charge from Customer Support (see Contact details) and gives a full list of areas served by each Land Registry office. You can also find this information on our website at www.landregistry.gov.uk

If you have any comments or suggestions about our guides, please send them to:

Central Operations Group
Land Registry
Trafalgar House
1 Bedford Park
Croydon
CR0 2AQ

(DX 8888 Croydon 3)

You can obtain further copies of this and of all our guides free of charge from from Customer Support (see Contact details) or you can download them from our website.

Land Registry advisory policy

We offer advice to our customers through our publications and Customer Support information and through the day-to-day handling of applications.

We provide factual information including official copies of registers, title plans and documents, searches and details of our forms and fees.

We provide procedural advice to explain how the land registration system works and how to make applications correctly. This includes:

  • advice in advance of an application, where this is requested
  • where an application is defective, advice as to the nature of the problem and what options, if any, are available to put it right
  • an approval service for estate layout plans and certain other land registration documents.

There are limits to the advice that we will provide. We will not provide legal advice.

This means that:

  • we will not approve the evidence to be produced in support of a registration application before we receive the application
  • apart from procedural advice, we will not advise on what action to take
  • we will not recommend a professional adviser but can explain how to find one.

We provide advice only about real cases, not about theoretical circumstances. We will not express a view on questions where the law is complex or unclear except where the question arises on a live registration application.

In providing this factual information and procedural advice we will:

  • be impartial
  • recognise that others may be affected by what we say
  • avoid any conflict of interest.

Contact details

For customer enquiries and to request this publication in an alternative format please contact Customer Support at customersupport@landregistry.gsi.gov.uk or telephone 0844 892 1111, or 0844 892 1122 for a Welsh-speaking service, from Monday to Friday between 8am and 6pm. Calls cost 3p a minute on a BT standard tariff, in addition to the current set up/connection charge. Calls from other tariffs, service providers and mobile phones may cost more. We do not receive any revenue from these calls.

To obtain copies of this and all our other guides, free of charge:

Information in this guide

The information in this publication is for the purpose of providing general guidance about Land Registry's procedures and policies. It is intended only as a guide and does not cover every situation that may arise. It also does not limit Land Registry's ability to use its discretion when appropriate to do so, within the land registration legislation.

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