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.