Andrew Lloyd, Managing Director of Search Acumen, calls on the Government to drop its plans to privatise Land Registry as the proposal gets dropped from the Neighbourhood Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

Mr Lloyd, Search Acumen’s Managing Director, had this to say: “The government is thinking again on Land Registry privatisation. If the abandonment of the sale is confirmed, this will be both a victory for common sense and a vindication of the property industry’s spirited campaign against the proposal over the past twelve months.

Here at Search Acumen, we welcome this step in the right direction but the matter has not yet been concluded – the threat to both the industry and the freedom of open data remains. Now is the time for property professionals to press the government on the sale and reiterate that it is not only bad for the industry, it is bad for everyone who owns or aspires to own a property.

Land Registry has come in for quite a bit of criticism over the years for being outdated, old fashioned, inefficient. That’s part of the rationale for a sale. But over the past few years things have actually moved in a much more positive direction, with Land Registry making great strides in commercialising its data, and in grasping the potential of ‘Big Data’. This has allowed innovators and disrupters in the private sector – companies like Search Acumen – to transform the industry for the better through new products that utilise Land Registry data. Entrepreneurs and creative minds are unlocking the opportunities buried in big data, and deploying that acumen to create efficiencies for property and legal professionals.

Land Registry is committed to going further and release more of its data sets in the near future, so why privatise and jeopardise all of this progress?

As the UK follows the post-Brexit journey and the housing crisis continues, I hope that the Land Registry is used efficiently to help strengthen our industry rather than add to our problems.”