Private firms are considering whether to bid for the Land Registry.
Contenders for the organisation, previously valued at £1.2bn, include buy-out firm Advent International.
Advent’s portfolio includes a stake in furniture company DFS while it previously backed Poundland.
The Chancellor’s Budget statement last week said that the Government “will shortly consult on options to move operations of the Land Registry to the private sector”.
The move to sell off the Land Registry, which holds titles for most of the land in England and Wales, are likely to be fiercely resisted by both the unions and Law Society, which have warned previously that a sale could undermine public confidence in the data.
Comments (6)
Well we have all seen what underhand things George Osborne is capable of – so why not add this to his ever growing list of failures !!
I agree that it would be a shame if profit is put before performance in all that the Land Registry stands for, BUT I have to say that it is about time that the LR (and by which I principally mean the people employed within it) is brought in to the 21st Century.
Their working practices are overly and unnecessarily complicated not helped by their often arrogant attitude to helping those of us who rarely have use of their services and aren’t specialist solicitors or surveyors.
I am a dyed-in-the-wool free-market-man but I have deep misgivings about this sell-off
Unless a well intentioned sorts got their hands on it.
This would be terrible. A profit making organisation would seek to enhance their profits by selling information about a property to everyone. The opportunity for fxxxx will become immense. It is bad enough now but would become unmanageable. Property owners deserve the protection of the state not the state making a profit from selling on their information to the highest bidder.
Now this I agree with you on!