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16 January 2026 / Phil Murrin
Issue: 8145 / Categories: Features , Profession , Risk management , Property , Landlord&tenant
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Mind the (registration) gap!

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The land registration gap leads to delays & claims, writes Phil Murrin. How can practitioners minimise the risks?
  • The Land Registry’s latest strategy paper recognises that processes are slow and complex, but there is no quick cure.
  • Against this background, practitioners are seeing claims involving registration gap problems.
  • This article advises how firms can understand the extent of their registration gap profile, and address that potential exposure accordingly.

On 5 November 2025, HM Land Registry issued its Strategy 2025+ report, setting out its vision for the next 10 years. This was issued in the context of the troubling expansion we have seen in recent years in relation to the registration gap—the time between the application to register and the registration itself. With reports (including a Homemove study in March 2025) indicating that in complex cases, parties are seeing a delay of up to two years, the release of the report is timely.

However, the report recognises that for many, processes are ‘slow and unnecessarily complex’. It also

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Hugh James—Jonathan Askin

Hugh James—Jonathan Askin

London corporate and commercial team announces partner appointment

Michelman Robinson—Daniel Burbeary

Michelman Robinson—Daniel Burbeary

Firm names partner as London office managing partner

Kingsley Napley—Jonathan Grimes

Kingsley Napley—Jonathan Grimes

Firm appoints new head of criminal litigation team

NEWS
Hugh James has secured 500 places on King’s College London’s new AI Literacy for Law course as part of a major firm-wide push to strengthen its responsible use of generative artificial intelligence
The criminal courts will sit to their maximum capacity next year, after the Lord Chancellor David Lammy lifted the cap on Crown Court sitting days
The Lord Chancellor David Lammy has set out his plans for ‘Blitz courts’, a national listing framework and other elements of the Leveson reforms
A former Commerzbank analyst has been sentenced to eight months in prison for lying during an employment tribunal hearing
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has joined with 60 data protection authorities from around the world to call for ‘urgent regulatory attention’ to the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI)
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