The Land Registry is not going to be privatised and will instead become a ‘digital data-driven registration’ business within public ownership. It has its headquarters in Croydon (pictured) and employs 4,480 staff, generates revenues of £254 million and looks after 24.5 million property titles.

News of the organisations’ reprieve from a proposed £1 billion privatisation was buried in the detail of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement last week and follows the quiet shelving of plans in September after it was dropped from legislation originally announced by the Queen in May.

That month the government closed a consultation on the privatisation but the response from key consumer and business groups was highly critical.

Those warning of a need for impartial and open property registration included the Competition and Mergers Authority, the Law Society and even several usually pro-privatisation Tory MPs.

Bernard Jenkin (pictured), Chair of Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and MP for Harwich & North Essex, said earlier this year that “while I am not opposed to the general principle of privatisation, the Land Registry must remain an essential arm of the state, the data must remain in state ownership, and the quality of service provided to the public by Land Registry must of course have priority over attempts to maximise capital gain and transfer risk from the Government’s balance sheet”.

Estate agents were unusually quiet about the planned privatisation, even though for some it is a vital source of house price data used in both valuations software and house price indices, and both Rightmove and Zoopla rely heavily on the Land Registry’s for its ‘house prices’ services.