The Local Authorities (Charges for Property Searches) (Disapplication) Wales) Order 2009

Title, commencement and application

1.—(1) The title of this Order is the Local Authorities (Charges for Property Searches) (Disapplication) (Wales) Order 2009.

(2) This Order comes into force on the same day as the day on which Regulations revoking the Local Authorities (Charges for Land Searches) Regulations 1994(1) come into force.

(3) This Order applies only to local authorities in Wales.

Interpretation

2.—(1) In this Order, “access to property records” (“mynediad i gofnodion eiddo”) means access to property records granted by a local authority in any of the following ways—

(a) allowing a person to inspect or search property records at a place designated by the authority for doing so;

(b) allowing the making of or providing copies of, property records; or

(c) the electronic transmission of property records, or copies of such records,

and in this Order, the expression “access to property records” (“mynediad i gofnodion eiddo”) is to be construed accordingly.

(2) In this Order, a reference to a local authority “answering enquiries about a property” (“ateb ymholiadau ynghylch eiddo”) means—

(a) the answering by the authority of any specific oral or written enquiries from a person about a property or property records; or

(b) the carrying out by the authority of any activities for the purposes of answering such enquiries.

(3) In this Order—

“property” (“eiddo”) means a specified building or structure or specified land in relation to which property records are held by a local authority; and

“property records” (“cofnodion eiddo”) —

(a)

includes documents, registers, files and archives (held in any form by the local authority), which relate to a property;

(b)

includes information derived from such documents, registers, files and archives; but

(c)

excludes the local land charges register kept under section 3(2) of the Local Land Charges Act 1975(2).

Disapplication of section 93(1) of the Local Government Act 2003

3.  Section 93(1) of the Local Government Act 2003 does not apply in relation to the best value authorities named in article 4, when granting access to property records or answering enquiries about a property.

Authorities to which this Order applies

4.  The best value authorities to which this Order applies are county councils and county borough councils in Wales(3).

Jocelyn Davies

Under authority of the Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing, one of the Welsh Ministers

19 January 2009