HM Land Registry: New reporting rules for contractual control rights
What legal professionals need to know to prepare for recording rights over land for development purposes.
Applies to England and Wales
The Provision of Information (Contractual Control) (Registered Land) Regulations 2026 require developers, promoters and others who hold certain rights over land for development purposes to provide information to HM Land Registry (HMLR) for publication in a new contractual control dataset. The Regulations apply to registered land in England and Wales and come into force on 6 April 2027.
New requirements take effect in April 2027
Although the new requirements do not take effect until April 2027, some rights granted on or after 8 June 2026 will still need to be reported. If you act for developers, promoters or other affected clients, it is worth preparing now so that you can comply with the new requirements when they come into force.
We are working closely with conveyancers as we develop a new digital service for providing contractual control information. We will shortly publish a new practice guide explaining which rights are affected, what information must be provided and how you can prepare. We intend to update the guidance regularly in response to customer feedback.
Important dates to note
| Dates to note | Action to take |
|---|---|
| New rights granted on or after 8 June 2026 but before the Regulations come into force on 6 April 2027 | Identify the rights granted to your clients since 8 June 2026 that will be affected, so you can submit the required information about those rights from April 2027. (You will have until 6 October 2027 to do this.) |
| New rights granted on or after the Regulations come into force on 6 April 2027 | Submit the required information to HMLR within 60 calendar days |
| Existing right changed or assigned on or after the Regulations come into force on 6 April 2027 | Submit the required information to HMLR within 60 calendar days |
How these requirements differ from land registration applications
Although contractual control information will be provided through HMLR’s digital channels, the process differs from a land registration application in several important respects.
Information must be provided by a regulated conveyancer
The information must be provided personally by an individual who is regulated to carry out relevant conveyancing activities, and not by a paralegal or other unregulated employee of a conveyancing firm.
You may need to collect additional information
Where the landowner is an individual, you will need their date and place of birth. This information is often available to the landowner’s conveyancer but may not routinely be shared with the conveyancer acting for the holder of the contractual control right. You should consider obtaining these details at an early stage to avoid delays later.
You will need to identify the affected land in a machine-readable format
Where a contractual control right affects only part of a registered title, HMLR will need machine-readable location data showing the area affected.
If the right affects whole registered titles, we can usually identify the extent from existing title information. However, where only part of a title is affected, we need additional location information to support a fully automated service and to enable future users to search the dataset geographically. The information is required to identify the land affected, not to define precise legal boundaries.
We will not be able to accept scanned PDF plans for this purpose. In many cases the easiest solution will be to obtain a digital spatial data file from the surveyor or professional drafter who prepares the contract plan. Common industry formats such as Shapefile and GeoJSON, based on UK National Grid coordinates will be supported.
We will also provide online mapping tools that allow conveyancers to identify affected land without uploading a spatial data file. Feedback from users who have tested these tools suggests that they are straightforward and quick to use.
What should you do now?
If you are currently negotiating or completing agreements that may contain contractual control rights:
- look out for the new practice guide, which will be published shortly
- remember that some rights granted on or after 8 June 2026 will have to be reported after the regulations come into force
- where a right affects only part of a registered title, consider asking your surveyor or plan drafter now to provide a suitable digital spatial data file alongside the contract plan
- where the landowner is an individual, consider obtaining their date and place of birth at the outset of the transaction
To submit questions, email: contractualcontrolsteam@landregistry.gov.uk