Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent estimate his Department has made of the average length of time a first registration of a property with the Land Registry takes to complete; and what steps his Department is taking to reduce that time.

HM Land Registry processes over 70,000 applications every day (based on 2020/21 figures). Over 80% are completed within three days. The vast majority of the remainder are completed within 5 weeks.

Of these applications, 1.4% are complex, including first registrations, creation of a new lease or transferring part of a property. It currently takes HMLR an average of seven months to complete an application for first registration of a property.

HM Land Registry is making significant investment in long-term transformation to improve customer experience and efficiency. It is improving processing times by greater digitisation and automation, and by building more operational capacity.

HM Land Registry will fast track applications, on request, where a delay would put a property sale or any kind of property transaction at risk, or cause any other problems not related to a land transaction.