Subject Access Request to HM Land Registry

Most people looking for Land Registry records want the title register or title plan for a property, and a subject access request is the wrong route for those. HM Land Registry's personal information charter says: "Personal information contained in the register of title is available for inspection under registration legislation and is exempt from disclosure under subject access." The official route is open to anyone. GOV.UK's search for land and property information service says you can find information about a property "even if you do not own it": a property summary is free, a title register or title plan costs £7, and an official copy - the version you need as proof of ownership in a court case - costs £11 per document and only arrives by post. A subject access request will not produce any of it, and asking for it that way costs you a month. If you are not sure whether a request is the right tool at all, what a subject access request can and cannot get you is the shorter read. The reason is statutory. Section 66 of the Land Registration Act 2002 opens the register of title to public inspection, and the charter says that where HM Land Registry processes personal information for that purpose "your rights are restricted in accordance with Paragraph 5 of Schedule 2 Part 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018". It names the duty to supply register data in answer to a subject access request, and the duty to rectify register data that is inaccurate, among the requirements that do not apply. The same shape applies at Companies House: the companies register is also exempt from subject access, and taking your home address off it is a separate paid application, not a data protection request. What a request can reach is the personal information HM Land Registry processes for everything else: correspondence and enquiries, complaint files, Property Alert and e-services account records, information collected when you contact it or visit an office, and employment and job application records. Its data protection complaints page says contact information and correspondence are kept "in our customer complaints record system for up to 7 years". If your point is that the register itself is wrong about you, that is not a rectification request either. The charter says errors in the register of title "are handled under statutory procedures as outlined in our registration legislation" and asks you to submit an application setting out the specific error, and publishes where to send an application. HM Land Registry covers England and Wales only. GOV.UK says you "need to search different registers if the property is in Scotland or the property is in Northern Ireland". The email address above is also HM Land Registry's data protection complaints inbox, and it publishes a separate online complaint form, so say in terms that you are making a subject access request rather than a complaint. There is no telephone route for a request: 0300 006 0411 is the general Customer Support Centre. HM Land Registry is one of several government departments with its own separate request route. If you are not sure which one holds what you need, start from which department holds the record you want.

Made under UK GDPR Article 15, subject to the exemptions in Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018

Central government departments hold large, long-lived files, and requests to them are usually tied to a decision the person is challenging: an immigration application, a benefit decision, a tax assessment. Naming the decision, the date and any reference number substantially improves what comes back.

Departments also have exemptions available to them that most organisations do not. Part 1 of Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018 lets them restrict access where complying would be likely to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime, the apprehension or prosecution of offenders, or the assessment or collection of a tax or duty. HMRC relies on the last of these. Separately, an immigration exemption lets the Home Office restrict access where complying would be likely to prejudice effective immigration control. Both are limited to the extent of the prejudice — neither is a blanket refusal, and a department has to justify withholding rather than assert it.

The immigration exemption in particular has been narrowed by litigation. The Court of Appeal found it incompatible with the UK GDPR twice, in 2021 and again in December 2023, and it was amended after each judgment. Since the amendments in force on 8 March 2024 the Home Office must decide case by case, separately for each right, and afresh each time, must show a substantial risk that outweighs the risk to your interests, must record its reasons, and must tell you it has applied the exemption unless saying so would itself be prejudicial.

Departments run their own subject access routes rather than one central one, and several also publish a faster self-service channel that answers the same question for free. Using the wrong one is the most common cause of delay: a request sent to a general enquiry address gets rerouted, and a request for information already sitting in an online account gets refused as unnecessary.

• Immigration and visa application files
• Benefit claim records and decision notes
• Tax records and correspondence
• Records of a decision you are appealing
• Internal notes and assessments about you

Deadline. An organisation must respond without undue delay and within one month. It may extend by up to two further months where the request is complex or you have made a number of requests, but it must tell you within the first month that it is doing so, and why.

Cost. There is normally no fee. A reasonable fee may only be charged where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, or where you ask for further copies.

Proving who you are. An organisation may ask you to verify your identity, but only where it has reasonable doubts about who you are, and it should ask for the minimum needed. Where it needs further information to deal with your request, the one-month clock pauses until you provide it.

How hard they have to look. An organisation has to carry out a reasonable and proportionate search — not an exhaustive one. What counts as reasonable depends on the volume of information, the difficulty of locating it, and the size and resources of the organisation. This is a common reason for a partial response, and it is worth being specific about what you want.

If they ignore you. Complain to the organisation first. Since 19 June 2026 every organisation has had a legal duty to give you a clear way to raise a data protection complaint, to acknowledge it within 30 days, to look into it properly and to tell you the outcome. If it does not, or the answer is incomplete, you can then complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.