GOV.UK Digital Registry & Mortgages: Understanding the Citizen Journey
Land Registry is a government department that operates as an executive agency and a trading fund for anyone buying or selling land or property, with all running costs covered by the fees paid by the users of their services. Anyone taking out a mortgage must apply to the government department to register unregistered land or property, which also includes any new owner of registered land or property or an interest affecting registered land or property, such as a mortgage, a lease or a right of way.
When considering each application, Land Registry decides whether and how it should be registered and once land or property is documented, Land Registry record any ownership changes, mortgages or leases that affect it.
Following a full review of all its services, Land Registry considered how systems might look if they started from scratch. How would they be designed today? This approach identified some potential areas of improvement including a Digital Register to make available to everyone a view of the Land Registry and also Digital Mortgage, a service allowing citizens to sign a mortgage deed online – speeding up the remortgage process for consumers, lenders and conveyancers.