Land Registry guide details contractual-control reporting duty

HM Land Registry has published practice guide 84 on contractual control rightsGOV, explaining when information about contractual control rights over registered land must be provided to HM Land Registry under the Provision of Information (Contractual Control) (Registered Land) Regulations 2026GOV, what information is required, and how and when it must be submitted.

The underlying duties apply to registered land in England and WalesGOV and come into force on 6 April 2027Legislation. A contractual control right is a written relevant contractual right of a type in regulation 3(2) — an option binding the proprietor of a qualifying estate to a relevant disposition, a right to enforce a conditional obligation to dispose, a pre-emption right, or a right to direct or request a disposition to a third party or to the granteeLegislation — other than an exempt right in the Schedule, such as national-security contracts and rights necessary or incidental to loan securityLegislation. A qualifying estate is a registered estate other than a short lease with under 15 years remaining when the right is createdLegislation; a relevant disposition is a transfer or a term of years absolute of 15 years or moreLegislation.

Timing turns on grant date. Rights granted on or after 8 June 2026 but before commencement must be reportedLegislation before 6 October 2027Legislation. Grants, assignments and written variations altering reported information on or after 6 April 2027 must be reported within 60 daysLegislation, as must complete or partial determination, expiry or exercise of a right already reportedLegislation. A person applying for a notice or restriction over a right that is, or would but for the grantor's title position have been, a contractual control right must supply the information with the application.

Information goes through a regulated conveyancer using the registrar's digital title-application channels, unless the registrar waives that route as unreasonable. It comprises grantor and grantee names with corporate identifiers, the grantor's date and place of birth where the grantor is an individual, the right type, the contract's date, parties and description, exercisability dates or conditions, initial control-period details with extension and termination provisions, title numbers with part-land identification where only part of a title is affected, the land address and postcode, and whether airspace held apart from the surface is included. Birth details are retained but never published.

The registrar retains the information and publishes a contractual-control dataset as soon as possible after 6 April 2028, updated at least monthly, omitting or correcting material found incorrect or misleading and able to flag determined, expired or exercised rights. Failure to supply required information without reasonable excuse is an offence under section 225(1) of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023GOV; the scenarios guidance notes that a reasonable conclusion of non-applicability reached on the basis of the practice guide and scenarios may amount to reasonable excuse.

Conveyancers acting for developers, promoters and other holders should therefore identify affected rights granted since 8 June 2026 for reporting from April 2027, collect individual grantor birth details early, and obtain machine-readable location data such as Shapefile or GeoJSON on British National Grid coordinates, or use the registry mapping tools, where only part of a title is affected, since scanned PDF plans are not accepted.

Legal basis is the Provision of Information (Contractual Control) (Registered Land) Regulations 2026 (S.I. 2026/615)Legislation, made under sections 219, 221, 223, 224, 226 and 252 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 and coming into force on 6 April 2027Legislation, with the offence in section 225(1) of that Act.