New Land Registry register for contractual control agreements

Sebastian Wahlstrom, Associate

A new publicly available register is set to be introduced by the Land Registry from 6 April 2028 which will hold data on land contracts in England and Wales, informally referred to as the National “Contractual Controls” Dataset (Dataset).

It is designed to provide transparency over who controls land in England and Wales through contracts rather that ownership. This could be anything from option agreements to conditional contracts or pre-emption and promotion agreements and will generally apply to agreements lasting 18 months or more.

Obtaining information about these agreements is currently not possible without consent from the parties and without consent or knowledge of the specific title number for a specific parcel of registered land it is extremely difficult if not impossible to locate the relevant data.

We understand that the Land Registry would seek to publish the Dataset centrally whether or not the agreement is secured by a notice against the registered title and allow interested parties to obtain the structured data, in bulk, with monthly updates.

The consultation, has to date, made it clear that they make no intention of disclosing the material provisions of any of these agreements and certainly will not seek to make them publicly available as they recognise the fact that they may very well contain confidential information.

What actually goes into and will be available from the Dataset is:

1. The details of the parties including their legal representatives;
2. The basic details of the agreement such as date, description and type and period of existence including end date; and
3. The description of the land including title number and address or plan if the parcel is irregular.

It is anticipated that the timeframe for publication will be 60 days from the date of the relevant agreement, which will include any variations made subsequently.

It will be the obligation of the party with the benefit of the agreement (usually the developer) to ensure that the data is made available but assuming a solicitor is involved, they will be able to assist with the logistics of it.

It is anticipated that the duty to publish the data will begin on 6 April 2027 but parties are obliged to publish data relating to agreements dating back to 6 April 2021 and can start publishing the data from now.

Developers, property traders and investors should ensure that they have suitable representation to ensure that they are ready and able to comply with these new rules well in advance of April 2027 and Kuits encourage them to contact a member of the property team for any assistance.

The National “Contractual Controls” Dataset was introduced by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 and further regularised by the Information (Contractual Control) (Registered Land) Regulations on 9 March 2026.