All Land Registry documents now open to public view

All documents held at the Land Registry are now accessible under changes that took effect on 13 October 2005.

Previously, only documents delivered to the Land Registry on or after 13 October 2003 were open to public view (under the provisions of the Land Registration Act 2002) unless an EID application had been made to remove commercially sensitive information. 

Although documents lodged at the Land Registry before 13 October 2003 were not normally available to third parties, this protection came to an end on 13 October 2005. 

Anyone concerned about information held by the Land Registry becoming available to public view can apply to have the document designated as an EID (exempt information document), which means that the Registry will contact them if it receives a request for an unedited copy.

The Land Registry is subject to the Freedom of Information Act disclosure rules which took effect after the LRA 2002 and if the Registry decide not to disclose a document under the EID rules, they then have to consider if it should be disclosed under that regime instead.

Notwithstanding the FOI Act, EID designations should be safe - grounds for exemption from the FOI Act include confidential information and also "personal data" which is protected by the Data Protection Act 1998.