From 20 September 2019, HM Land Registry will not accept
‘signed as a deed’ as an acceptable form of wording in
prescribed form deeds executed by companies and limited
liability partnerships. Where a disposal is in a
prescribed form that must be executed as a deed (such as
Form TR1 or CH1) we will require that the forms of
execution set out in Schedule 9 to the Land Registration
Rules 2003 are used. For example schedule 9 requires the
following form:
Executed as a deed by (name of company) acting by [a
director and its secretary] [two directors].
This change better reflects section 44 of the Companies
Act 2006 and the provisions in the Land Registration
Rules 2003, which require particular forms of execution
to be used on prescribed forms of Deed.
We know this issue has caused some confusion for
customers recently. We hope this now provides clarity and
we apologise for any ambiguity and inconvenience this
caused previously.
To help you prepare for the change, we are giving
customers 3-months’ notice to adopt the wording set out
in Schedule 9, in respect of prescribed deeds. Within
this period, we will not raise a request for information
when ‘Signed as a deed’ is used in the execution of
prescribed deeds by corporate bodies. The notice period
will end on Friday 20 September 2019.
The Land Registration Rules 2003 do not prescribe forms
of execution where a non‑prescribed form of deed is
used. However, wherever possible, we ask that you adopt
the wording set out in Schedule 9 of the Land
Registration Rules 2003. We believe doing so will help
avoid requests for information and improve consistency.
Read Practice Guide
8.
Webinar
If you would like help on this, you can watch
a 14-minute recorded
webinar. This gives examples of correct and incorrect
execution by corporate bodies. Alternatively,
a 31-minute recorded
webinar gives more information about execution
requirements generally.
