The Land Registration (Official Searches) Rules 1993

PART I

Citation and commencement

1.  These rules may be cited as the Land Registration (Official Searches) Rules 1993 and shall come into force on 28th March 1994.

Interpretation

2.—(1) In these rules, unless the context otherwise requires: “the Act” means the Land Registration Act 1925;

“credit account” means an account authorised by the registrar under article 15(1) of the Land Registration Fees Order 1993(1);

“day” except in rule 14(1)(e), means a day when the Land Registry is open to the public;

“day list” means the record kept pursuant to rule 7A of the principal rules;

“designated plan” means a plan which is a copy or extract from the Ordnance Map at the largest scale published for the area in which the land to which it relates is situated, such plan to have a length no greater than 297 mm and a width no greater than 210 mm (A4 paper size);

“official certificate of search” means a result of official search issued in accordance with rule 4 or 10;

“pending first registration application” means an application made under section 4 or 8 of the Act and entered on the day list but where the registration has not yet been completed;

“the principal rules” means the Land Registration Rules 1925(2);

“priority period” means the period beginning at the time when an application for an official search is deemed by virtue of paragraph (3) below to have been delivered and ending immediately after 0930 hours on the thirtieth day thereafter;

“proper office” means the district land registry designated as the proper office by article 2(2) of the Land Registration (District Registries) Order 1991(3);

“purchaser” means any person (including a lessee or chargee) who in good faith and for valuable consideration acquires or intends to acquire a legal estate in land and “purchase” has a corresponding meaning;

“search from date” means:

(a)

(i)

the date stated on an office copy (either issued in response to an application made under rule 2 of the Land Registration (Open Register) Rules 1991(4) or issued under rule 4(3) or rule 10(3) of these rules) of the register of the relevant registered title as the date on which the entries shown on the said office copy were subsisting, provided that the said office copy was issued by the registrar not more than twelve months before the day upon which the relevant application under these rules was delivered or, in the case of an application for an official search with priority, was deemed by virtue of paragraph (3) below to have been delivered;

(ii)

the date stated at the time of an access by remote terminal, under rule 4A of the Land Registration (Open Register) Rules 1991, to the register of the relevant registered title as the date on which the entries accessed were subsisting, provided that the transmission by the registrar’s computer system of the entries so accessed occurred not more than twelve months before the day upon which the relevant application under these rules was delivered or, in the case of an application for an official search with priority, was deemed by virtue of paragraph (3) below to have been delivered;

(b)

where the term is used in Form 94C and at D of Part I of Schedule 3, either a date within (a) or the date (or most recent date, if more than one) stated in the land or a charge certificate of the relevant registered title as the date on which that certificate was officially examined with the register.

(2) In these rules a form referred to by number means the form so numbered in Schedule 1.

(3) (a) An application for an official search with priority made by a purchaser which is delivered under the provisions of rule 3(3)(a) or rule 3(3)(b)(ii) after 0930 hours on one day and before or at 0930 hours on the next day shall be deemed to have been delivered immediately before 0930 hours on the second day.

(b) An application for an official search with priority made by a purchaser which is delivered under the provisions of rule 3(3)(b)(i) or rule 3(3)(b)(iii) shall be deemed to have been delivered at the time notice of it is entered on the day list.

(4) Expressions used in these rules have, unless the contrary intention appears, the meaning which they bear in the principal rules.

(1)

1993/3229.

(2)

S.R. & O. 1925/1093; relevant amending instruments are S.I. 1978/1601, 1986/1534, 1990/314.

(3)

S.I. 1991/2634.

(4)

S.I. 1991/122; amended by S.I. 1993/3275.