“Plans have come a long way since ‘X marked the spot’ in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. In fact, if the pirate treasure map had been HM Land Registry compliant and appropriately lodged, the book would have been much shorter.”
Lale Safa
Senior Associate
Authors
Lucy Vannet
Partner
Lale Safa
Senior Associate
Ben Halsey
Knowledge Development Lawyer
Planning for all eventualities
As part of the conveyancing process, you and your solicitors will often need to check or commission plans that are to be submitted to HM Land Registry (HMLR) as part of a registration process. This is not a mere formality - a plan that does not meet HMLR’s requirements can result in the application to register the transaction being rejected, causing extra work, delay and, potentially, real prejudice to the parties involved.
This edition of ‘It’s the law’ explains what HMLR expects from a plan and why getting it right first-time matters.
Why good plans matter
HMLR used to be remarkably flexible about what plans it would accept. That made things quick and easy in the short term - but it had a tendency to cause confusion in the long run, with the precise boundaries of what had been transferred becoming somewhat ‘blurred’. Literally, in some cases.
HMLR has become progressively less flexible over the years. The pre-registration deeds and their plans can play a crucial part in resolving any future boundary disputes or questions about the extent of the land in a registered title. Good quality deed plans are therefore a key aspect of any property transaction. Any plan that needs to be lodged with an application for registration or for a search must be such that the land concerned can be clearly identified on the Ordnance Survey (OS) map.
Plans that fulfil HMLR’s guidelines will:
- Give buyers a clear understanding of what they have bought.
- Provide a sound basis should problems arise at a future date.
- Ensure that applications lodged with HMLR are processed more efficiently and effectively.
- Reduce the risk of applications being rejected.
So, when transferring a house on a new development you will need to show the precise position of the boundaries, along with the route of any rights of way and the location of any shared outbuildings, such as bin stores.
The guidelines (Practice Guide 40)
HMLR’s detailed guidance on plans is set out in Practice Guide 40 (PG40) and its supplements. Practice Guide 40, Supplement 2 (PG40s2) - last updated in October 2025 - provides specific guidance for preparing plans for HMLR applications. It sets out Table 1, which contains the key guidelines, and Table 2, which lists common deficiencies and examples of deficient plans.
HMLR will not necessarily reject a plan simply because one of the guidelines has not been followed, provided that the land in question can still be clearly identified on the OS map. But meeting the guidelines makes it far more likely that the application will be accepted for registration first time.
The main requirements are:
- Stated scale: 1:1250 to 1:500 for urban properties; 1:2500 for rural properties such as fields and farms. Larger scales are acceptable but will not result in a larger scale title plan.
- North point: The plan must show its orientation - a north point is the standard approach.
- Surrounding detail: Sufficient detail must be shown - including surrounding roads, junctions and other landmarks - so that HMLR can relate the plan to the OS map. Road names must be included.
- No disclaimers: The plan must not include qualifying statements such as ‘for identification only’ or ‘do not scale from this drawing’, or any other disclaimer about its accuracy.
- The whole property: The entire property must be shown - including garages and any garden. Where appropriate, this can be shown on a number of different plans.
- Buildings: Buildings should be shown in their actual or - on uncompleted developments - intended positions. HMLR may conduct a survey on new developments as part of the registration process, so accuracy is important; discrepancies between the plan and the ‘as built’ construction can give rise to, at best, embarrassment and, at worst, costly rectification.
- Drives and pathways: These should be clearly shown, particularly if they form part of the boundaries.
- Boundaries not marked by physical features: Where boundaries are not defined by physical features (such as walls, roads, paths, hedges or ditches), they must be indicated by precise metric measurements, shown to two decimal places.
- Boundary edging: The boundary of the property should be identified clearly - usually by coloured edging (a reason why real estate teams were often referred to by their colleagues as the ‘colouring in department’). It is important that the colouring does not obscure other detail. Remember that a line shown on a plan represents around a third of a metre on the ground: plenty of scope for a neighbour dispute.
- Flats and floor levels: Plans of flats or leasehold units must show where the property sits in relation to the external footprint of the building and, critically, must show the extent of the property at each different floor level.
- Subsoil or airspace: Where a specific stratum of subsoil or airspace is included or excluded, the plan should show the relevant heights and depths by reference to Ordnance Survey Datum - technically, that is the mean sea level at Newlyn in Cornwall between 1915 and 1921. Advertising hoardings may also fall into this category of unusual extent. This is a matter for an architect or qualified surveyor, not something to guess.
- Intricate boundaries: Internal divisions in a building and other intricate boundaries should be shown on a separate plan at a larger scale - such as 1:200.
- Printing: Care must be taken when printing plans received electronically. Printer defaults are often set to ‘fit to page’, which can reduce the plan in size and render stated scales inaccurate. Bar scales like these:
- are preferable precisely because they remain accurate even if the plan is scaled.
- Copy quality: Plans which are a photocopy of a photocopy will often be distorted. HMLR expects plans to be clear and unambiguous.
“A boundary dispute is often one of the most expensive and protracted arguments that two or more parties can have - using well-drawn, and well-referenced plans is one of the cheapest ways to avoid them.”
Lucy Vannet
Partner
Signing the plan
The seller or landlord must sign the plan attached to a transfer or lease. Where there are multiple plans in a transfer or lease - for example, plans relating to the extent, to easements, or to retained land - all of them must be signed.
If the seller or landlord is a company, the plan(s) should be signed by officers with authority to sign on behalf of the company. The officers whose signatures appear in the form of execution at the end of the transfer or lease can be taken to have the necessary authority.
HMLR will accept a conveyancer signing a plan on behalf of the seller/landlord or applicant - provided the signature is endorsed to that effect (for example: ‘[signature] as conveyancer on behalf of the Transferor’). This is not, however, a reason to be less careful: if HMLR rejects the plan and a new plan needs to be substituted, all parties must sign the replacement. Getting it right first time is always preferable.
Whilst these requirements mean that, from HMLR’s perspective, the purchaser/other parties do not always need to sign a plan – it is considered good practice for a conveyancer to ask them to on each occasion, not least as it encourages them to review and acknowledge the plan and reduces the risk of later disputes.
Searches of part
HMLR now also adopts a rule that plans submitted in support of a pre-completion priority searches (submitted on form OS2) are assessed using the same guidelines as plans for transfers or leases of part and must:
- Show clearly and precisely, by suitable colouring or edging, the precise extent of the land to be searched.
- Be drawn to a stated scale.
- Show sufficient detail of surrounding roads and other features to enable the position and extent of the land to be identified on the OS map and/or the parent title plan.
Top tips
In addition to the technical requirements above, the following practical points are worth bearing in mind by everyone involved:
- Make sure anyone producing your plans has a copy of this edition of ‘It’s the Law’ and is aware of the relevant HMLR guidelines in PG40 and PG40s2.
- If your building contract or development agreement provides for someone else to produce conveyancing plans for you, make sure that it specifies that they must be Land Registry compliant.
- Think about which plans will be required across all documents in the transaction - not just the main contract or transfer. Charges/mortgages, deeds of variation, and deeds of covenant may all require their own plans.
- At the outset of a transaction, your solicitors will undertake a series of searches based on ‘the plan’. If the plan changes, many of those searches may need to be redone. So, as much thought as possible should be given to plans at the outset.
- Where plans are submitted electronically (whether via DocuSign or lodged through the HMLR portal), ensure that the plan included in the digital envelope is not distorted. Check that colours and fine detail have been correctly captured.
- When printing plans from a PDF, adjust the printer settings to print without reduction in size - do not use ‘Shrink to Printable Area’ or similar options. PG40s2 (section 9.8) gives specific guidance on this if you require further excitement.
Extra services for developers
HMLR offers two additional services that are of relevance when developing a new estate:
- Estate Boundary Approval: When a developer first undertakes a measured survey of their land, they can ask HMLR to compare it against the registered title to check that the two marry up. It is a good way of spotting issues before building starts.
- Estate Plan Approval: Once the development has been fully planned and the layout of individual plots decided, a developer can submit a base conveyancing plan showing all of the plots. If HMLR does not approve it, they will say so - giving you the opportunity to rectify it before sales get underway. In addition, once approved, purchasers can deal with their HMLR searches by quoting the relevant plot number rather than having to provide detailed plans at that stage. HMLR will reject estate plans that do not meet requirements and is increasingly doing so where plans are not to the stated scale.
It is always worth using HMLR’s free estate plan checking services before plots go on sale.
Key/legend and document cross-references
A plan will usually include a key or legend explaining the meaning of colours, hatching or other visual elements used on the plan. Even if something is explained in the key, parties and their lawyers must ensure that the relevant detail is also set out clearly in the definitions and descriptions contained in the legal document that the plan forms part of - and vice versa.
A common source of requisitions from HMLR is where:
- The definitions and matters referred to in the document do not formally tie in with (or include all) the detail shown on the plan.
- The document fails to incorporate references to the matters set out in the plan’s key or legend.
Where more than one plan is used, you must make sure that references to them in the document are correct and that each plan is clearly labelled.
This document is part of Devonshires’ ‘It's the law’ series, tailored for people working in development and regeneration. All reasonable precautions have been taken to ensure that the information contained is materially accurate. However, this document is not intended to be legally comprehensive, and no action should be taken on the matters covered without seeking specific legal advice.
The guidance in this edition reflects HM Land Registry Practice Guide 40 (and in particular Supplement 2, as updated in October 2025) and Practice Guide 41 (and its supplements).
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