Updating local land charges registers

HM Land Registry (HMLR) is working with local authorities to move local land charges registers to a new central database. Epping Forest uses our software to perform about 200 searches each month, and we’re helping them to get ready.

However, their set-up had been causing some problems. The land charges system was competing for space on the council’s own servers so some searches were taking far too long to run. After looking at a range of options for meeting HMLR’s requirements, Epping Forest opted to go fully-hosted in NEC’s cloud.

Delivering great results for land charges and ICT teams

The council’s digital strategy aims to transfer most apps to the cloud by 2023. Land Charges had become one of the top priorities due to its impact on the council’s resources.

ICT Business Partner Seth Mahadoo explains:

“As well as running slow, it was also really hard to fault-find. You’d have problems two or three times a week but would spend ages working out where they were. Moving to NEC’s cloud was by far the most cost-effective option.”

We worked with Seth and Dawn’s team to get everything in place and delivered a smooth move in October 2021. As part of the additional managed service we offer for Land Charges, we’re now managing their data, interfaces, monitoring and support calls, including resetting passwords and controlling permissions.

The benefits are clear:

• Officers have full confidence in the system’s speed and availability
• Land Charges searches can now be completed in minutes instead of hours, helping the council to reduce turnaround times
• The ICT team is no longer fielding high volumes of support calls