Comment on Landowners could scupper free Land Registry access plans, campaigners warn
thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe 6 days agoNo worries, easily done. I’ll get my tuppence worth in as well.
On the how to respond, well it comes down to basically stating why you think opening it up would be a good thing. I’ve not thought through my response yet, but calling out transparency is helpful for good governance; for being able to easily find ownership of derelict properties; or even just understanding who owns large blocks of land allows appropriate representations to council about management of your local area.
Here’s a few links on the subject
www.countryfile.com/environment/who-owns-england
grandgoldman.com/…/land-registry-paywall-removal-…
(warning the grandgoldman one has ai slop javascript, click the firefox reader view button for a better view(the square that looks like a page in the url bar))
theguardian.com/…/no-timeline-for-lifting-land-re…
(earlier guardian article on it)
That is really helpful, thank you!
brewery@feddit.uk 6 days ago
Yeah I’m still thinking of a response too. Transparency generally is better.
My argument would mainly be that the cost is a barrier to normal people and academics looking to do research that would benefit the public. I personally wanted to do research about our local area to see how much land is publicly vs privately owned but the cost of access prohibited me from doing it. However, if I was rich I could just pay, so it’s an unfair to have a unnecessary cost being in the way.
Anti-money laundering is always a good one.
We already provide company information for free so why should this be any different. If Companies House can operate in this way there is absolutely no reason why the Land Registry cannot. Submitters pay fees when submitting and that should be enough to cover the costs.
It could save on legal fees when buying a property or settling boundary disputes.
It would help businesses where the information could help them find potential clients or for infrastructure projects.
It would help leaseholders to understand who actually owns the land before having to pay solicitors to do checks. Most people go for the cheapest conveyancing so I would guess things are easily missed, especially if each request is a separate cost.
thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe 5 days ago
Actually your text just triggered a thought to add to your list - renters being able to easily check who owns a property can help reduce the incidence of fraud where people get signed up for a long term rental and pay money at properties where the fraudster is resident for a couple of weeks via air bnb (yes it really happens - foreign students in particular)
withabeard@feddit.uk 5 days ago
I do quite a bit of (and help organise) conservation volunteering. Think countryside and green space path maintenance and management. Woodland path clearing, step building. Just creating nice green space for people to be. Arranging litter picks, working with ecology teams to build habitats etc.
Sometimes even council publicised paths, walks and tourist areas are a scattered blanket of landownders and complications. Having open access to the land registry makes it much clearer who we can go to and ask about helping make our green spaces nicer.
thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe 5 days ago
That’s another great point. I hope you’ll respond too
brewery@feddit.uk 5 days ago
Interesting! Will mention that in mine too