HM Land Registry contractual control rights reporting: further guidance

The Provision of Information (Contractual Control) (Registered Land) Regulations 2026 introduce new reporting requirements for certain agreements that give a person control over registered land in England and Wales. These include some options, pre-emption agreements, conditional contracts and promotion agreements.

In our previous article, Options, promotions, pre-emptions: Why your land deals must now be reported, we considered the scope of the new contractual control rights reporting regime.

HM Land Registry has now published further guidance on how the regime will operate in practice, providing some helpful clarification for developers, promoters and their advisers.

When will contractual control rights need to be reported?

One key reminder is that, although the reporting requirements do not come into force until 6 April 2027, rights granted on or after 8 June 2026 will still need to be reported. HM Land Registry is encouraging affected parties to identify those agreements now so that the necessary information is available when reporting begins, and we are seeing a number of clients putting those arrangements in place now.

What information will HM Land Registry require?

The guidance confirms that, for individuals, their date and place of birth will need to be provided, so parties will need a process to ensure that that information is obtained earlier in the transaction. It is also now stated that contractual control information must be submitted for registration by an individual regulated conveyancer, and cannot be delegated to an unregulated employee or dealt with in-house (except by an in-house regulated conveyancer).

Digital plans and spatial data requirements

The guidance also provides further detail on land identification requirements. Where rights affect only part of a registered title, HM Land Registry intends to require machine-readable spatial data and will not accept scanned PDF plans alone. Formats such as Shapefile and GeoJSON will be supported, alongside online mapping tools. Is that an indication that this will become a requirement for registration of land more generally?

Preparing for the new reporting regime

None of these developments changes the scope of the reporting regime as summarised in our earlier article, but they underline the importance of preparing now. In particular, developers and promoters should consider how they will capture additional information and whether their surveyors and plan drafters can provide suitable digital spatial data as part of the transaction process.

How we can help

Our Housebuilding & Strategic Land team can help developers, promoters and landowners understand how the contractual control rights reporting regime may affect their agreements and prepare for the new requirements. If you would like to discuss the changes or the steps your business may need to take, please get in touch with a member of the team.