Registered Leases
Overview
A lease is a contract which gives the right to exclusive possession of land to a tenant for a specific amount of time. Leasehold is one of two ways of owning land (the other is freehold). The owner of a freehold or leasehold interest may grant a lease. The “landlord” (or “lessor”) is the person who grants the lease. The landlord’s title is the “superior” or “reversionary” title. The “tenant” or “lessee” is the person who takes the lease. The tenant’s title is the “inferior title”.
If the lease is granted for more than 7 years, it must be registered with HM Land Registry. The registered leases dataset is made up of data elements relating to leasehold entries in HM Land Registry’s register.
Specification scope
Inclusions and exclusions
This dataset includes all registered leasehold land and property in England and Wales. Due to data protection regulations, it excludes any personal data, which may lead to fields being blank. This information may be available in individual registers or in documents referred to in the register and retained by HM Land Registry.
Relationship to other HM Land Registry data products
The Unique Identifier (UID) will be consistent across HM Land Registry datasets and allow relational links with other datasets with this attribute.
Address relationships
The UID represents an individual registered title. Where there is more than one address associated with a registered title these are listed as multiple rows for the ID.
There may be one or more addresses associated with a property where there is a superior lease. Not all leases included in a superior lease are registered in their own right. Associated property addresses may not be included in the register of the superior leasehold.
Data content and structure
Table 1 - Registered Leases class diagram
| Registered Leases |
|---|
| Unique Identifier |
| Tenure |
| Register Property Description |
| County |
| Region |
| Associated Property Description ID |
| Associated Property Description |
| UPRN |
| Price Paid |
| Reg Order |
| Date of Lease |
| Term |
| Alienation Clause Indicator |
| Change Indicator |
| Change Date |
Table 2 - Registered Leases table structure
| Field name | Data type | Mandatory | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unique identifier | CharacterString | Yes | A unique reference number given to a piece of registered land |
| Tenure | CharacterString | Yes | The conditions upon which a person holds land i.e. Freehold or Leasehold |
| Register Property Description | CharacterString | Yes | The unformatted property description in the register |
| County | CharacterString | Yes | Name of current County in England and Wales |
| Region | CharacterString | Yes | Name of a geographic region which comprises one or more current counties, former counties or unitary authorities or any combination of these |
| Associated Property Description ID | CharacterString | No | Uniquely identifies the Associated Property Description |
| Associated Property Description | CharacterString | No | All Land Registry Property Gazetteer (LRPG) addresses associated with the registered property. Each unique identifier may refer to multiple associated property descriptions |
| UPRN | CharacterString | No | A Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) used by Ordnance Survey for the spatial address of a property. If no UPRN is available, this attribute will be '' (blank) |
| Price Paid | CharacterString | No | The sale price stated on the transfer deed which will be the last recorded sale price available in our published Price Paid Dataset. This may not relate to the sale to the current proprietor which may have been excluded (see our list of exclusions) |
| Reg Order | CharacterString | Yes | Leasehold titles can be comprised of 1 or more leases; the leases are represented by a number in the order of registration date on the register |
| Date of Lease | CharacterString | Yes | Date that the lease is signed and becomes a legal document. This may not be the start of the lease term |
| Term | CharacterString | No | The period for which the lease is granted. There is no standard format for this entry |
| Alienation Clause Indicator | CharacterString | Yes | Indicates whether an alienation clause, which limits the lessee’s power to dispose of the lease (re-assign, transfer, sublet or share occupation) is present in the register |
| Change Indicator (change only update file) | CharacterString | No |
Indicates the type of change made to a row in the change only update file: A indicates a new entry D indicates an entry has been removed |
| Change Date (change only update file) | Date | No | The date of the extract of the change only update |
Data quality
The dataset is made up of elements copied from HM Land Registry’s database systems via an automated process. Before we release the dataset, we check it for inclusions and exclusions through a quality control process. We try to make sure our public data is accurate but cannot guarantee it is free from errors or fit for your purpose or use.
Data capture information
Leases granted for a period in excess of 7 years are entered in the register as leasehold titles by HM Land Registry.
Data maintenance
The published data gives a snapshot of information from leasehold titles at the point of monthly extraction.
Data product delivery
Access to the dataset
Two files will be published from the 6th working day of the month.
The data is published in both a monthly complete file and a file that only shows changes to the dataset since the previous month. This is known as the change only update file.
Once the full dataset has been downloaded, the UID allows users to maintain the data by adding the change only update to the full dataset each month. Alternatively, the user can download the full dataset again, which also contains all changes made to date.
Granting access
You'll need to create an account on the Use Land and Property Data service.
To create the account, you'll need to provide some information about yourself. We collect and hold personal and non-personal information, which may be validated, to identify who has requested the data. For more information about how HMLR handles personal data, see the Personal information charter.
There are 3 different licences for this dataset. You have to choose which licence you need based on how you’re going to use the data. Once your account has been approved and you’ve agreed to the correct licence, you can sign in to access the data.
File structure
The data is provided as a .CSV file. The data in each file will:
- use a comma to separate each field: ',' (ASCII 44)
- enclose all fields within double-quotes: "" (ASCII 34)
- send blank fields without a character between double quotes: “ ”
- use UTF-8 encoding (the way characters are coded for websites)
- have line separation removed
- have the column heading name as the first row
- have the row count as the last row
File name
The file names will be structured as follows:
- Monthly full extract
- file name: LEASES_FULL_<1>_<2>.csv
- <1> Year <2> Month
Example file name structure for October 2018: LEASES_FULL_2018_10.csv
- Monthly Change Only Update (COU)
- file name: LEASES_COU_<1>_<2>.csv
- <1> Year <2> Month
Example file name structure for October 2018: LEASES_COU_2018_10.csv
File management
The current full file and current change only update file will be available for download each month.
Contact information
If you have any feedback or questions about this data, contact us:
Telephone
- Telephone: 0300 006 0478
- Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm
- [email protected]
- We aim to respond within 2 working days