Estate agents back plan for land registry

Thursday 17th September 2009, 1:00PM BST.

land registryA LAND registry could stop property sales descending into disputes over boundaries, according to estate agents.

Directors yesterday backed the Treasury and Resources Department’s plans to hold a review to establish a registry. These go to the States this month.

Ozannes advocate Mark Torode also gave it his support.

The registry would be an official record of land ownership plotted accurately on the States digital map, as opposed to the current registry of deeds held at the Greffe.

Swoffers director Spencer Noyon said it could solve expensive problems.

‘I think it would speed up the whole process, which would be a great help to estate agents and the general public.

‘With every other sale at the moment, we have a boundary dispute of some type and a land registry would go some way to clearing some of that up.’

He said legal professionals who are involved in such cases might not feel so positive about it.

‘I don’t know about the advocates, they might feel like they are signing their own death warrant if they support it,’ he said.

Martel Maides director Keith Enevoldsen also backed the idea.

‘I think any central database of that information is helpful,’ he said.


  1. 1
    Doug White

    Why has it taken so long? The Victorians achieved this in England and Wales in the 1860′s.

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  2. 2
    Paul Le P

    It’s about time a new system was introduced – we have the technology. The current system is archaic and so open to interpretation it’s no wonder disputes arise.

    My wife and I bought a house in November 2007 and were told that no boundary issues existed. When we sold the house in July this year both ourselves and our neighbour had to change our title deeds over a “boundary issue” that neither of us knew existed! Considering the property had existed in its current form since the 1950s we both found this ludicrous!

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  3. 3
    Molly

    This is long overdue and will be a win-win situation for both buyers and sellers. If it is run by the States I am assuming it will it will bring in much needed revenue? Will the associated costs of buying and selling property and land in Guernsey be reduced? Are there going to be some public presentations on the proposals or was it just for politicians and business people? I didn’t see anything advertised.

    Having looked a the information available on the Digimap website it appears to be a fantastic resource that shows that private/public partnerships can work and the States would be negligent not to make use of the technology available. The government should embrace this.

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  4. 4
    Peter

    A nice idea, but “in the current economic climate” is this a project that the island should be spending money on?
    I have no idea what this would cost to set up but it certainly will not be cheap….
    Don’t we have existing priorities for capital spending?

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  5. 5
    Molly

    The way i read it is the cost to the tax payer will be negligible. If Treasury are going to run it then the staff are already there aren’t they? If it brings money into the States coffers surely it would be silly not to pursue it? The businesses seem to think it is a good idea as quoted by estate agents and law firms.

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  6. 6
    Peter

    Hi Molly
    Staff might already be there but I assume that a new computer database would be needed to hold the data….this will not be cheap.
    Also specialized staff may be required to maintain the system.

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