HM Land Registry objected to details of the owners of the 36 flats being made available on Talacrefacts in spite of all such information being available to the public on the Land Registry site from where it was obtained.
What follows is the correspondence between the Land Registry and the Owner of the Talacrefacts site, in date order, followed by correspondence found on the internet between one of the flat owners and a site called something like "Just ask a law question" here.
Dear Mr Harding
www.talacreflats.org.uk and use of Land Registry documents/information
I am writing on behalf of HM Land Registry which is the government department responsible for registering the ownership of land and property in England and Wales and maintaining the register of title. I am a lawyer in the Corporate Legal and Assurance Services Group based at our Head Office.
The website www.talacreflats.org.uk has recently been brought to my attention and I am contacting you as it appears, from the contents of the site, that you are connected with the website.
I note that certain pages of the website contain information that appears to have been obtained from Land Registry. For example, the page headed “Owners of Private Flats and their Solicitors” contains information on buyers of particular plots and their solicitors and indicates that this information has been obtained from Land Registry. In addition, a copy of the register and title plan relating to freehold title number NGL637463 has been included under the heading “Land Documents”. I also note that copies of other documents reproduced on the website appear to have been obtained from Land Registry, for example, copies of transfers of the development site dated 5 September 2008. The copy register appears to have been obtained through Land Registry’s Find a Property service, the use of which is subject to terms and conditions as set out on our website. Those terms and conditions provide (among other things) that the service is intended for the purpose of providing information for the personal use of the private citizen. The terms also confirm that information available through that service is protected by Crown Copyright and other intellectual property laws and that Land Registry’s prior consent must be obtained before reproducing and/or distributing any Land Registry documentation.
I am not aware that you have been given permission to display a copy of the register and plan for title NGL637463 or any other Land Registry document/information. I consider that the information obtained from Land Registry is not being utilised for personal use since the information appears on a website that is open to the general public. I would also point out that there may well be data protection implications in relation to the display of personal information on the website. The Open Government Licence which enables public authorities to make certain data available for re-use free of charge does not cover the use of personal data.
In the absence of permission to display the Land Registry documents and information I must insist that these are removed from the website immediately.
I look forward to hearing from you within the next 14 days with confirmation that the above steps have been taken.
Yours sincerely
Mary Brophy
Lawyer, Corporate Legal and Assurance Services, Land Registry, Head Office
Trafalgar House, 1 Bedford Park, Croydon CR0 2AQ
Tel: 0300 006 3117
Dear Ms Brophy
I refer to yours of 5.11.14 under the above head. I think you are referring to Talacrefacts, not Talacreflats ie Facts, not Flats.
I am one of the people involved in several websites connected to Talacre, including the one to which you refer. I suggest you use the email address from which this is sent ie NJHNW5@GMAIL.COM for any future communication to reduce the risk of delay.
I have reviewed the Terms and Conditions to which you refer but failed to locate anything directly relevant (bearing in mind the context summarized below), so should you continue to be concerned, I would be grateful if you would point me in the right direction. In the meantime, could you treat this email as a request for your consent to continue to post information on this and related sites? Information about to the land including the planning permissions comes from a number of sources. By referring to or providing copies of publicly available documents from the Land Registry what would otherwise be assertion, is avoided – surely that is in the public interest? For example, if we find that the vendor’s solicitor for ten flats was Smith and Jones, does the fact that we found that out from the Land Registry prevent us from mentioning it unless and until we obtained the information from another source? With regard to the documents for the sale of land by the local authority, the earlier ones were sought from the authority by the local press and refused. I then found they were available on the Land Registry and was able, using the FoI Act, to get confirmation from the authority that they were the relevant ones for the sale of the public land. Those of 5.9.2008 were essentially the completion of the sale plus a transfer between the original developer/potential freeholder and a buyer – both bound by the terms of the planning agreement.
I would be interested to know what gave rise to your email. If it were a complaint, who made it? And why they should wish to suppress information that is in the public domain.
I need to provide you with the context in which this information is on Talacrefacts. I am not in a position to quote chapter and verse as to where it fits in with any statutory constraints on the dissemination of information that is already in the public domain but I would be surprised if they were able to trump public policy on transparency and natural justice.
Relevant information can be found on (or via) the Talacrefacts site. In summary:
· The Talacre area consisted of a park (Talacre Gardens), Talacre Sports Centre, a road (Dalby St) which linked the sports centre with a main road and an area on which there were 3 travellers’ pitches (the Travellers’ Site). All four were owned by the local Council (Camden). Dalby St and the Travellers’ site were for the most part registered under NGL637463 with the address 52 Prince of Wales Road, London NW5 3LR
· land sale and development proposals went through approval processes as a result of which the Travellers’ Site and most of Dalby St became owned by a developer and a block of private and affordable flats plus a doctors surgery have recently been built. (Most of Talacre Gardens became a Town Green under recent legislation as a result of hostility to the development and in particular the impact it would have on access to the Talacre Sports Centre). The latter includes one of the largest gymnasiums in the country, has a patronage of about one-third of that of the London Zoo and enjoys a huge popularity with visitors who come from miles away.
· The planning consent was for the development building to be on Dalby St itself and for the beneficiaries of that consent to have to build a new road on the site to provide access from the public highway (Prince of Wales Road) to the Sports Centre. The planning (s106) agreement requires this new road to be maintained and to be managed by marshals employed by the “owners” in perpetuity. The “owners” ie those with an interest in the land were to begin with a developer who became the owner of the freehold but evolved to become the owners of 36 private flats, an RSL for 19 “affordable” flats, the NHS (or similar) for the doctors’ surgery and the freeholder(s). A later agreement provides for the affordable flats not to have to contribute to the maintenance and marshalling. The new road is almost entirely to maintain access to the Sports Centre and the “Owners” obtain negligible benefit from it. Hence the reality of private flats potentially having to pay several £,000s a year in their service charges for something of negligible value to them.
· The current situation is that the private flats became occupied in July 2014, the surgery moved in this week and the affordable flats are expected to be occupied shortly.
· The tension between the public interest which lies in supporting the hugely popular Sports Centre and the “Owners” was recognized by the QCs at the public enquiry into the stopping up of Dalby St and their closing statements can be found in the links on this page. There, the importance of local people being vigilant and the obligations resting upon the “owners” as specified, are brought out. I mention this as perhaps a quick way of verifying that what I am saying is accurate and that using the facilities of the Land Registry is a legitimate component of looking after the public interest.
I think you will see from the above that those with an interest in this are users of the Talacre Sports Centre and those, local and not so local, who are anxious that it shall not be disadvantaged by this combination of land sale and planning permission. It is to them that the site is mainly directed. The considerable extent of public concern can be gauged from the 100s of letters and articles in the local press – see here.
Yours sincerely, Nick Harding
Dear Mr Harding
Thank you for your email of 18 November. I am sorry for the delay in coming back to you concerning this matter.
I would draw your attention to the following provisions contained in our Find a Property terms and conditions (November 2014):
“2. Land Registry has established this System and website principally for the purpose of providing information and Services for the personal use of the private citizen.”
While your comments concerning your reasons for publishing Land Registry information on the website www.talacrefacts.org.uk are noted I am afraid I do not consider that the publication of the documents and data amounts to personal use as referred to above.
The following provision is also relevant:
“4.2 The Data and information you can access is our intellectual property and as such is protected by Crown Copyright and other intellectual laws. All ownership rights remain with us. You must not infringe the Crown's copyright. Your use of the Data and information retrieved from Find a Property will be in accordance with these Terms and Conditions and the requirements set out elsewhere in this site. You must obtain our written consent before reproducing and or distributing any reproduction of any Land Registry documentation. If you are unsure whether your proposed use of the Data or information infringes these property rights
please email us on copyright@landregistry.gov.uk.”
It appears that Land Registry’s consent has not been obtained for the reproduction of the Land Registry documents and data on the website and I am afraid that I am unable to provide consent for this purpose for the reasons referred to below.
While the Land Registry information provided on the website is available to the public through our statutory services it is not appropriate that this should be published and made publicly available via the website in question, particularly insofar as personal information is concerned. As mentioned in my previous email, there are likely to be data protection implications in relation to the personal information displayed on the site (there may also possibly be Human Rights implications). I would mention that in the context of the Data Protection Act 1998 while Land Registry has the benefit of an exemption under section 34 of the Act which covers personal data made available to the public under statute ie pursuant to the Land Registration Act 2002 and 2003 Rules you do not have the benefit of this exemption.
I can confirm that this matter has been brought to my attention as a result of a complaint received from someone whose personal information has been disclosed on the website. Further information concerning data protection matters can be obtained from the Information Commissioner’s website at https://ico.org.uk/ to which you may wish to refer.
While I am grateful to you for providing further background information concerning the site and your reasons for wanting to make certain information available, I must in the circumstances repeat my request that you take appropriate steps to remove the Land Registry data from the website.
I await hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
Mary Brophy
Dear Ms Brophy
Thank you for your email of 10th December.
I have removed references to individuals where obtained from the Land Registry site, from the website www.talacrefacts.org.uk. I have done this with some reluctance as I firmly believe it to be in the public interest that individuals who benefit from a planning decision which puts obligations on them which are intended to protect the public good should be capable of being known. It may be there is a conflict between the various legal entities, concepts and so on – you quoted several. Should this case be of more general interest when such conflicts are discussed, I have no objection to this correspondence being shared.
I am also conscious of the right to privacy which Owners would wish for but believe that in buying these flats which come with these obligations to the community, in equity, if not in law, they cannot expect to be anonymous. It is a field I have worked in albeit not professionally.
In any event, the information on the site was somewhat out of date since completion has taken place on these flats as recorded on NGL637463 and new numbers are quoted there. Hence such information is readily available to anyone and I assume corresponds to some information in other places. It may, I imagine be of interest to those concerned over such hot political topics as the extent of overseas buyers, flats being unoccupied bought just for future capital gains and so on. I doubt whether the Land Registry would want to make it harder for such information to be disseminated.
Yours sincerely, Nick Harding
Dear Sir/Madam I'm the owner of an apartment in a new development
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Dear Sir/Madam
I'm the owner of an apartment in a new development in London for which there are complaints and some kind of single person campaign against. I'm not bothered about the complaints or the campaign but I'm not happy at all about the fact that this person disclosed Land Registry's information about the building owners in his website.
The website itself I doubt has got much visibility but search engines index all kind of website pages and as result of that, if for instance I "google" my full name, I can see in the second page of results a detailed link that informs I've purchased an apartment in the building and its address.
I'm aware the the identity of owners of property is a matter of public records as Land Registry records can be accessed BUT I doubt this means that this kind of information acquired from the Land Registry can be freely disclosed as this person has done. There is in fact a big difference in how the information can be obtained from Land Registry and how it is now available in the web thanks to this person website.
My question is if there is something I can do to force this person to remove the page from his website. This are the website on which the page is linked: http://www.savetalacre.co.uk/ & http://www.talacrefacts.org.uk/ This is the page with the Land Registry's information which includes also my full name: https://sites.google.com/site/talacrefacts/owners-of-private-flats
Thanks, Fabio
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Expert: Ash replied 3 years ago.
Alex Watts : Hello my name is ***** ***** I will help you with this. For now please let me know whether the information shown is accurate?
fabiohl. Hi Alex, the information is accurate. My name is***** and the information shown in the links is taken from the Land Registry and seems correct or at least it is regarding the apartment I've purchased, my names and my wife's too.
Alex Watts And the information at the Land Registry is public information too isn't it?
JACUSTOMER-82ebcfiz- :
As far as I know the information can be accessed from the Land Registry website paying £3, the difference is that you get the owner details by looking into a specific property/apartment, not the other way around. I can't know from the Land Registry which apartments belong to Boris Johnson to make an example.
JACUSTOMER-82ebcfiz- :
https://eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/www/wps/portal/!ut/p/b1/04_SjzS0tDQwMTIxMjLXj9CPykssy0xPLMnMz0vMAfGjzOKNjSxMDA1NjDwsjM3MDTxN3dyNDUNMjQ1MjPWDU_P0c6McFQH3SLFU/
Alex Watts. Its bad news then I am afraid. :If the information being published is a matter of public record you may struggle getting it removed. The only thing I can think of is if you complain to the Information Commissioner..They investigate breaches of the Data Protection Act and can take action and prosecute where necessary. Their website is: www.ico.gov.uk. But the ICO may be able to deal with this for you. Of course in terms of search engines you can go to a website such as www.guru.com and get a developer to produce a load of web pages.This means your main links wont appear on Page 1 of Google and its very rare someone looks on page 2. Can I clarify anything for you about this today please?
JACUSTOMER-82ebcfiz- :
Terms and Condition in the Land Registry website seems pretty clear to me, the information you access there are for personal use only, not to be disclosed. Its is not the same but If I buy an mp3 in amazon I'm free to do so but I can't make that mp3 available in my website.
Alex Watts :Ok - then that is why you should complain to the ICO. They may be able to take action for you.
JACUSTOMER-82ebcfiz- :ok, I will
Alex Watts :But if its against the Land Registry terms it is for the Land Registry to take action. You can't sue for breach of terms on behalf of the Land Registry unless they appoint you as agent. :Does that help?
JACUSTOMER-82ebcfiz- :Yes thanks, ***** ***** contact ico.gov.uk
Alex Watts : Great. Can I clarify anything else for you today?
JACUSTOMER-82ebcfiz- :That's all, thanks
Alex Watts :Great. Can I help with anything else at all today for you?