Local Land Charges Duty
The Infrastructure Act 2015 provided for the transfer of statutory responsibility for local land charges in England and Wales from local authorities to Land Registry. Under these provisions, the Land Registry will provide a single, digital local land charges register for the 326 English local authorities.
It is currently intended that the Local Land Charges Rules 2017 will come into force later this year. However, the rules will only take effect in relation to local authorities in stages as there will be an incremental roll-out of the Local Land Charges Register Service.
Section 35 of the Act amends the Land Registration Act 2002 to broaden the powers of Land Registry so that it can provide information and register services relating to land and other property. When the proposals are implemented, local authorities will still be responsible for collecting and updating information in the land charges register, and also for making CON29 searches (extended searches that largely relate to planning policy). It is also intended that the new digital register will only accept applications made in electronic form.
A Local Authority Search is in two parts:
LLC1
The first part, the Official Certificate of Search, deals with entries registered in the Local Land Charges Register, e.g., Financial Charges, Improvement Grants. Tree Preservation Orders. Conditional Planning Consents and Agreements.
CON29
The second part is the Enquiries of Local Authorities and is known as the CON29.
This is a standard form of questions agreed between the Law Society and Local Government Associations and provides comprehensive information to prospective purchasers of property. The enquiries deal with issues such as Planning- control of development, Highways - road schemes, adoption of roads and Environment - notices e.g., noise abatement, contaminated land.
The 2016 edition of the Con29 has introduced additional enquiries which include SUDS, CILS, Public Rights of Way and Assets of Community Value.