Land Registry aims to ‘minimise disruption’ amid ...

Next week may not be the best time for agents to chase conveyancers waiting for Land Registry information.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) has arranged targeted strike action for Land Registry staff from 27 February to 3 March.

More than 350 Land Registry workers in Birkenhead, Coventry, Croydon, Durham, Fylde, Gloucester, Hull, Leicester, Nottingham, Peterborough, Plymouth, Swansea, Telford and Weymouth will take action from February 27 to March 3.

This will affect union members working in some of HM Land Registry’s customer service teams, including the Customer Support Centre (CSC).

The strikes are the latest escalation in the union’s national strike in 123 government departments over pay, pensions, redundancy terms and job security.

The Land Registry said core services, with all time-critical services required for property transactions, will continue as normal, including pre-completion searches, the majority of which are automated, and urgent applications that have been expedited.

However, contact with HM Land Registry will be affected.

The Land Registry said: “Mitigation action will be taken to keep disruption to a minimum, but there will likely be longer call waiting times and possibly reduced call hours.

“We intend to keep our phone lines to the scheduled opening hours.

“However, if we need to reduce these call hours, we will update our contact HM Land Registry page with the revised opening hours for that day.”

The CSC will operate as normal this week and due to the strike action, it will now also be operating on Friday 24 February until 5pm.

From Monday 6 March the CSC will be operating as normal, the Land Registry said.