Dear Alex Andrews,

Thank you for your email of 26th May 2021 in which you requested information on the titles of registers purchased by the user who purchased a register for ON297085 on the 22/05/2019 (at 17:33:29).

Your request will be processed under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and I will aim to respond to your request within 20 working days.

Yours sincerely,

Zak Chevin
Disclosure Officer
Information Rights Team, Castle Wharf House, 2 Canal Street, Nottingham, NG1 7AU
Email: [email address]
GOV.UK | @HMLandRegistry| LinkedIn | Facebook
To see how HM Land Registry treats your personal information please click here

show quoted sections

Dear Alex Andrews,

Thank you for your email of 26th May 2021 in which you requested the title
numbers of all properties purchased by the user that purchased ON297085 on
22/05/2019 at 17:33:29.

We are unable to provide this information as disclosure is exempt under
section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Disclosure of this information is likely to cause harm to HM Land Registry
as the information when combined with other available information could be
used to create a shadow register or commit register fraud and identity
fraud.

Section 31(1)(a) states

“Information which is not exempt information by virtue of section 30 is
exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be
likely to, prejudice – 

a. The prevention or detection of crime…”

It is considered that disclosure of the information would be likely to
prejudice the prevention of crime.

Section 31 is a qualified exemption. We are required to conduct a public
interest test when applying any qualified exemption. This means that after
it has been decided that the exemption is engaged, the public interest in
releasing or withholding the information must be considered. If the public
interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in
withholding it, then the exemption does not apply, and the information
must be released.

We have considered the following in relation to your request:

In favour of disclosure:

• We recognise that there is a legitimate public interest in promoting the
accountability and transparency of public authorities

In favour of maintaining the exemption:

• There is a clear public interest in protecting society from the impact
of crime

• Releasing the information will prejudice the prevention of crime by
facilitating or encouraging the possibility of a criminal offence being
carried out 

• The information requested, especially when combined with other available
information, could be used in a manner which would make HM Land Registry
more vulnerable to crime

Having considered the public interest, the Department’s decision is
therefore to withhold the information.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me.

If you are dissatisfied with this response to your request, you may seek
an internal review within two months of the date of our reply. Internal
reviews will be dealt within 20 working days. If at the end of this time
we are unable to respond, we will write to you explaining the reasons and
giving you a new date. If you seek an internal review, please write to:

Information Rights Team

Head Office

Trafalgar House

1 Bedford Park

Croydon

CR0 2AQ

Email: [Land Registry request email]

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) within
three months of the reply for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a
decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by HM
Land Registry. Please see their contact page. Please note that the ICO's
offices are closed for the foreseeable future. They are unable to receive
correspondence by post.

Yours sincerely,

Zak Chevin

Disclosure Officer

Information Rights Team, Castle Wharf House, 2 Canal Street, Nottingham,
NG1 7AU

Email: [1][email address]

[2]GOV.UK | [3]@HMLandRegistry| [4]LinkedIn | [5]Facebook

To see how HM Land Registry treats your personal information please
click [6]here

HM Land Registry’s ambition is to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data. Our mission is: “Your land and property rights: guaranteed and protected”.

We check all mail and attachments for known viruses. However, you are advised that you open any attachments at your own risk. If you have received this email and it was not intended for you, please let us know, then delete it.

We welcome correspondence in English and Welsh.

To see how HM Land Registry treats your personal information, read our Personal information charter: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land....

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Dear Alex Andrews,

Thank you for your email of 24th June 2021.

Title numbers are unique references used to identify a particular property or piece of land in England and Wales, as outlined in my response to your request referenced F210543, when these are used with other available information there is the potential that they can be used to create things such as a secondary register which can be used to commit title or identity fraud.

Releasing the information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 will prejudice the prevention of crime by facilitating or encouraging the possibility of a criminal offence being carried out.

This information is exempt under Section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, if we were going to redact information due to it being considered personal information then we would have used Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

I hope that the above answers your query.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact myself.

Yours sincerely,

Zak Chevin
Disclosure Officer
Information Rights Team, Castle Wharf House, 2 Canal Street, Nottingham, NG1 7AU
Email: [email address]
GOV.UK | @HMLandRegistry| LinkedIn | Facebook
To see how HM Land Registry treats your personal information please click here

show quoted sections

Dear Alex,

Thank you for your email of 28th June 2021.

We have referred your email to one of HM Land Registry's Deputy Data Protection Officers as we are going to process this email as an internal review as per our processes.

Our Deputy Data Protection Officer will aim to respond to your email as quickly as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Zak Chevin
Disclosure Officer
Information Rights Team, Castle Wharf House, 2 Canal Street, Nottingham, NG1 7AU
Email: [email address]
GOV.UK | @HMLandRegistry| LinkedIn | Facebook
To see how HM Land Registry treats your personal information please click here

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Andrews,

We are going to consider the below as part of your Internal Review - we try to respond to all requests, including Internal Reviews within 20 working days of receipt.

Yours sincerely,

Zak Chevin
Disclosure Officer
Information Rights Team, Castle Wharf House, 2 Canal Street, Nottingham, NG1 7AU
Email: [email address]
GOV.UK | @HMLandRegistry| LinkedIn | Facebook
To see how HM Land Registry treats your personal information please click here

show quoted sections

Dear Alex Andrews,

Thank you for your emails of 06th and 09th July 2021.

Please note that we work through emails in the order we receive them.

All information sent to you up until this point is what you have requested, we are unable to make assumptions as to what information you require and therefore provide information in line with the wording you use when you make a Freedom of Information Request.

If you would like any requests reviewing by way of an Internal Review, you will need to inform us of this in writing so that we can refer it to one of HM Land Registry's Data Protection Officers for their considerations.

Yours sincerely,

Zak Chevin
Disclosure Officer
Information Rights Team, Castle Wharf House, 2 Canal Street, Nottingham, NG1 7AU
GOV.UK | @HMLandRegistry| LinkedIn | Facebook
To see how HM Land Registry treats your personal information please click here

show quoted sections

Dear Alex Andrews,

I am emailing in relation to the Internal Review that we are currently
processing for Freedom of Information Request F210543.

In my initial email, I advised that we would try to respond within 20
working days. Unfortunately, we have not yet completed a full review of
the request and response due to the complex nature of the information and
therefore we will aim to respond to you by the 30^th July 2021.

Please accept my apologies for the delay, we appreciate your patience in
this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Zak Chevin

Disclosure Officer

Information Rights Team, Castle Wharf House, 2 Canal Street, Nottingham,
NG1 7AU

[1]GOV.UK | [2]@HMLandRegistry| [3]LinkedIn | [4]Facebook

To see how HM Land Registry treats your personal information please
click [5]here

HM Land Registry’s ambition is to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data. Our mission is: “Your land and property rights: guaranteed and protected”.

We check all mail and attachments for known viruses. However, you are advised that you open any attachments at your own risk. If you have received this email and it was not intended for you, please let us know, then delete it.

We welcome correspondence in English and Welsh.

To see how HM Land Registry treats your personal information, read our Personal information charter: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land....

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Our Ref: F210543

Dear Alex Andrews

Thank you for your email of 25 June 2021 in which you advised that you did
not understand why your Freedom of Information request had been refused.

You were then contacted by a member of the Information Rights Team on 28
June 2021 to confirm that your query had been escalated to an internal
review. I am the Information Rights Compliance Manager (Disclosure) for
the Information Rights Team and have reviewed your request.

Your review

In your e-mail of 25 June 2021, you stated the following:

“I'm afraid I still don't understand why my request has been refused.  All
I have asked for is a list of the title numbers that have been purchased
(and the dates of purchase).  That will not identify the purchaser and
will not identify the particular property or piece of land in England and
Wales to which the title number refers, so I still don't understand how
providing a list of title numbers could be "used to create things such as
a secondary register which can be used to commit title or identity
fraud"?  The purchase of a title number identifies neither the purchaser
nor the particular property to which the title number refers.”

Time for compliance with your request

Your original request for information was received on the 26 May and
responded to on the 24 June. I therefore consider we complied with Section
10(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) in that we responded
to your request no later than the twentieth working day following receipt
of your request.

The information is held

Information relating to title numbers is held by HM Land Registry.

In our reply to you of 24 June 2021, you were advised of the following:

“Disclosure of this information is likely to cause harm to HM Land
Registry as the information when combined with other available information
could be used to create a shadow register or commit register fraud and
identity fraud.”

You were also advised of the exemption of this information by virtue of
Section 31 of the Freedom of Information Act.

Further information

Section 31 is a qualified exemption and requires the application of a
public interest test when determining whether it is appropriate for
information to be released to the wider public. Under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (FOIA), disclosure of information is to the world at
large and is not a discreet disclosure to the individual who has made the
request.

You were advised that disclosure of title number information is likely to
cause harm to HM Land Registry as the information when combined with other
available information could be used to create a shadow register or commit
register and identity fraud.

Your request was focussed upon title ON297085 (purchased on the 22 May
2019) and extended to all other titles purchased by the same user.

We consider this to be a request for current and future ownership records.

If we were to comply with your request, we would be providing information
about the ‘user’ in question. This information could be used together with
information that is available through other means to create a record of
current and historic owner information for a specific individual or
organisation. 

We are concerned that disclosure of this information could then be used to
commit fraud.

An example where other information is available through an [1]IOPN search
(index of proprietors’ names).

In relation to current ownership by an individual this is not permitted
unless you fall within our legislation. This is explained in our
[2]practice guide 74.

Our practice guide states:

“If you cannot show that you have sufficient interest in the property of a
private individual you wish to search against, your application will be
rejected.”

Point 2 of the practice guide explains the circumstances where a search
can be submitted. Point 5 explains the search results and refers to
[3]practice guide 11 which explains how to obtain an official copy of the
register.

Official copies of a register can be requested and they will include
information about the owner of the title including their address.

We consider the services that HM Land Registry offer are the most
appropriate mechanisms for accessing information from the register. There
are balances and checks within these services that are not present when
considering disclosure under FOIA (which is applicant and purpose blind).

In relation to historic ownership information the same principles apply.

Historic information is often used by:

o credit reference agencies for individuals and
o Government Departments

to determine if they are dealing with the correct individual or corporate
entity. It is important data for the purposes of preventing identity theft
or company takeover fraud and providing this information in response to an
FOIA request would cause prejudice to these owners and provide information
to anyone who may wish to use it for illegal means.

We are therefore concerned that disclosure of the information, under FOIA,
could allow for fraud and in turn prejudice the integrity of our Register.
The integrity of the Register is very important and one of our
responsibilities is to provide “a reliable record of information about
ownership of and interests affecting land and property”.

HM Land Registry provides an exceptional breadth of services whose simple
purpose is to maintain clarity and security in property ownership and
secured lending and to support swift transactions. We have provided the
trust and confidence the market and economy need through being expert and
having integrity in all we do.

Land is our nation’s greatest asset. Clarity and security of land
ownership is essential to a functioning property market. A healthy market
is essential to a successful economy and society. Land is used to support
all dimensions of life – agricultural, business, social and personal. Its
financial value may fluctuate, but its vital role in life remains the
same.

HM Land Registry provides that necessary clarity and security in property
ownership and interests. We do this by maintaining a land register of land
and property titles in England and Wales. The records are state
guaranteed. This supports secured lending on property. HM Land Registry
enables property transactions to be registered accurately, efficiently and
safely. This provides trust and confidence in the property market and
thereby in the economy generally.

If we were to release the requested information, we consider that this
would cause harm to HM Land Registry and other third parties, for example,
land and property owners who could be the victims of fraud.

The exemption provided at Section 31(1)(a) can be used to withhold
information that would make anyone, including the public authority itself,
more vulnerable to crime. When considering the harm that could be caused
by disclosure, we must also consider any harm likely to arise if the
requested information were put together with other information. This is
commonly known as the ‘mosaic effect’. The mosaic effect usually considers
the prejudice that would be caused if the requested information was
combined with information already in the public domain.

When applying the exemption at Section 31 we are also obliged to consider
the public interest test. There is a clear public interest in protecting
society from the impact of crime. Balanced against this is the public
interest in disclosing information that holds authorities to account and
increases transparency about how they perform their functions. Without
such information the public may lack confidence and.

The exemption provided by Section 31 serves to protect society from crime
and to prevent the disclosure of information that would facilitate or
encourage criminal activity.

We consider the public interest to favour the protection of the
information and that the exemption has been applied appropriately.

Your right to complain

I hope I have been able to provide some clarity about the matters you have
raised, however, if you are not content with the outcome of the internal
review, you have the right to seek assessment from the Information
Commissioner’s Office (ICO) within three months of this reply.

The contact details are:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Website: [4]www.ico.org.uk

Yours sincerely

Paul Douglas

Information Rights Compliance Manager (Disclosure)

Information Rights Team

Risk and Assurance 

Land Registry

Trafalgar House, 1 Bedford Park, Croydon, CR0 2AQ

Phone: 0300 006 0411 (English language) or 0300 006 0422 (Welsh language)

[5]GOV.UK | [6]@HMLandRegistry| [7]LinkedIn | [8]Facebook

To see how HM Land Registry treats your personal information please
click [9]here

HM Land Registry’s ambition is to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data. Our mission is: “Your land and property rights: guaranteed and protected”.

We check all mail and attachments for known viruses. However, you are advised that you open any attachments at your own risk. If you have received this email and it was not intended for you, please let us know, then delete it.

We welcome correspondence in English and Welsh.

To see how HM Land Registry treats your personal information, read our Personal information charter: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land....

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This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service.
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