Local Land Charges Programme guidance updated as migrations continue

HM Land Registry continues to publish updated guidance on its Local Land Charges (LLC) Programme, the long-running project to move local land charges registers from individual councils into a single, centralised digital register. Each time a local authority migrates, the practical mechanics of the LLC1 search change for the firms acting on transactions in that area. For conveyancers, this is less a policy story than an operational one.

What migration actually changes

Before migration, an official search of the local land charges register is made to the local authority, which holds and maintains its own register. After migration, HM Land Registry becomes the sole registering authority for that district. The LLC1 is then obtained from the central digital register rather than the council.

Three things typically shift on the day a council goes live:

Turnaround. Searches of the digital register are returned almost immediately rather than in the days or weeks some authorities take. For firms working to fixed exchange dates, that removes one of the more unpredictable variables from the search pack.

Fee. HM Land Registry sets a standard fee for the LLC1 across all migrated areas, replacing the wide variation in charges between individual councils. Depending on the authority, the new fee may be higher or lower than what your firm was previously paying, and your quoting and disbursement templates need to reflect that.

Where the CON29 comes from. This is the point most often missed. Migration covers the LLC1 only. The CON29 enquiries of the local authority remain with the council, which continues to set its own fee and its own turnaround. So a migrated area produces a split search: an instant LLC1 from HM Land Registry and a CON29 still subject to local authority backlogs. The overall pace of the local search is still governed by the slower of the two.

Why the guidance keeps moving

The programme has run in phases, with authorities going live in tranches rather than all at once. That means the national picture is a patchwork: some districts are fully migrated, others are not, and the list changes as further councils come on board. HM Land Registry publishes and revises its programme guidance accordingly, including the list of live authorities and the practical notes for practitioners on how searches, registrations and applications to vary or cancel charges work post-migration.

The practical consequence is that firms cannot assume a fixed process by region. A practice handling transactions across several neighbouring districts may be dealing with migrated and unmigrated authorities in the same week, on the same terms of business.

What firms should be doing

Check your quoting assumptions. If your fee estimates carry a single figure for the local search in a given area, confirm it still holds after that council's migration date. Quoted disbursements that no longer match the actual charge create awkward conversations and, at scale, reconciliation work.

Reset client expectations carefully. It is tempting to tell clients the local search is now instant in a migrated area. It is not, unless the CON29 has come back too. Frame it as one half of the search returning immediately.

Update internal file notes and checklists. Where a fee earner is used to chasing the council for the LLC1, that chase is now pointless. Removing redundant steps is a modest efficiency gain, but it also stops junior staff wasting time on the wrong contact.

Watch for post-migration variations. Applications to add, vary or cancel charges in migrated areas go to HM Land Registry rather than the council. If your firm acts for developers or on matters generating charges, the routing has changed.

The longer view

The end state of the programme is a single national register with consistent fees and near-instant LLC1 results everywhere. Until every authority has migrated, the value for conveyancers lies in knowing precisely which regime applies to the property in front of them, and pricing and scheduling accordingly. Ordering through a search provider like Searchpoint, that tracks migration status automatically removes most of that admin burden, because the correct route and fee are applied without the fee earner having to check.

See how Searchpoint handles local authority searches across migrated and unmigrated areas.