27 March 2020
Conveyancing and COVID-19 Updates Land Registry Update
Members will be aware of the statement from Land Registry dated 24th March 2020 in relation to the closure of the Registry.
The Society has been in constant discussions with the Registry over the past number of days with a view to having some services up and running again as soon as possible. In the meantime, the Registry have provided the following Practice Note for the profession outlining the current state of play with their services.
[ insert Practice Note link here ]
The Society will continue to work with Land Registry over the coming days and weeks to restore functionality to their system.
Members may also wish to take cognizance of the statement of the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government in London on conveyancing during the COVID-19 crisis. The link to this statement is below:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-advice-on-home-moving-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak
The statement from the Ministry envisages that some transactions will complete but the reality of the position in Northern Ireland given the content of the Land Registry Practice Note is that completions will be extremely difficult to effect currently in the vast majority of cases.