What is an AP1 form?
Form AP1 is the application to change the register: the form on which you ask HM Land Registry to alter what its records say about a registered property. The deed does the legal work; the AP1 is how it reaches the register. Nothing on a title changes until an application is made, and for most changes that application is an AP1.
Treat it as the covering sheet carrying nearly everything else. A transfer, a discharged mortgage, an assent, a restriction, a corrected name. Each has its own deed or evidence, each lodged under an AP1 saying what is enclosed, what is applied for and what fee goes with it. It is a prescribed form. Rule 13 of the Land Registration Rules 2003 requires it for any application for which no other form is prescribed, and the form itself sits in Schedule 1 to those rules. Rule 210(1)(b) says a Schedule 1 form has to be reproduced as it appears in the Schedule as to wording, layout, ruling, font and point size, so it cannot be rewritten to suit the transaction, and rule 211 allows only presentational changes to an electronically produced version, such as deepening a panel or leaving out one that would be empty. A perfect deed posted alone achieves nothing; an error on the AP1 stalls a finished transaction.
Where do I get the AP1 form, and is it free?
It costs nothing. HM Land Registry publishes the blank form on GOV.UK at change the register (AP1), as a PDF you can type into or print. Anyone charging for the document is selling something the registry gives away.
Take it from that page, not a search result or an old precedent, because HM Land Registry reissues its forms and the page always carries the current edition. HM Land Registry publishes no rule that a superseded edition is sent back. What Practice Guide 50 does say, at section 6.1 (updated 16 March 2026), is that using the wrong application form, or leaving relevant panels blank, is handled by a request for information, which costs time rather than priority.
When do you need an AP1?
Whenever a registered title has to be brought up to date and no dedicated form covers it. After a transfer, the signed TR1, or the TP1 where only part of the land moved, is lodged under an AP1 so the buyers become proprietors. After a mortgage is repaid, the lender's discharge, electronic or on paper form DS1, is lodged under an AP1 so the entry leaves the charges register.
A restriction sought on its own is applied for on form RX1, which is an application in its own right and needs no AP1; wanted alongside a transfer, the AP1 lists the restriction as one of the applications and the RX1 travels with it. After a death, personal representatives passing the property to a beneficiary sign an assent on form AS1, lodged with a certified copy of the grant. Where ownership has not moved but the register carries the wrong name, marriage, divorce, deed poll, the evidence goes in under an AP1 too: see changing your name. If the register should say something it does not, an AP1 is how you ask.
How do you fill in an AP1, panel by panel?
Most of the AP1 is copied off the official copy. The panels that cause trouble need a judgement: what you are applying for, in what order, for what fee, and who is proving identity. On the edition of 7 October 2024, which runs to fifteen panels, the first three of those sit together in panel 4 and identity is dealt with in panels 12 to 14 (checked 19 September 2026).
| Panel | What it asks for | What goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Local authority | The council whose area the property sits in, with the postcode | A county named where the district or unitary council is the authority |
| Title number(s) | Every title number affected, exactly as the official copy prints it | One number given where a neighbouring title is also affected |
| The applications | Each thing you want done, in plain words: register the transfer, discharge of charge, entry of restriction | A description too vague to act on; a second application forgotten |
| Priority order | The sequence in which the listed applications are dealt with | The new charge before the transfer, so a mortgage comes from someone not yet the proprietor |
| Fee | How the fee is worked out and paid: the value or consideration, under the current fee order | The wrong scale; a value the deed contradicts; a direct debit account not held |
| Documents lodged | Everything enclosed: deed, grant, certificate, consent, plan | A document named on the form but not in the envelope |
| The applicant | The full name of the person or company applying, normally whoever benefits | The seller named instead of the buyer; a company without its registered number |
| Identity evidence | Which parties have a conveyancer, and identity evidence for those who do not | No ID1 or ID3 for an unrepresented party; a passport copy sent instead (Practice Guide 67, updated 1 September 2026) |
| Address for service | The addresses entered for each proprietor; a postal one is required | Nothing entered, so requisitions and registry post never arrive |
| Disclosable overriding interests | Whether an overriding interest has to be disclosed, with form DI if so | "Yes" ticked and no form DI enclosed; the question skipped |
| Signature and date | Signed and dated by the applicant or the conveyancer lodging | Unsigned; signed by one of two joint applicants; dated before the deed |
What do you send with an AP1?
The deed or evidence comes first: transfer, assent, discharge, deed poll or court order, properly executed and dated. Where the register carries a restriction, whatever it demands travels with it, a lender's consent, a management company certificate, a trustee's signature, or the application cannot complete.
Identity evidence comes second, and it is not needed on every application. HM Land Registry lists eight kinds of application that call for it, among them a transfer, an assent, the grant of a registrable lease, registering a charge, discharging one on paper, and altering the register after a change of name. Where a conveyancer acted for a party, no ID form is needed at all: the conveyancer gives the registry the details of the conveyancer who acted. A party who had no conveyancer uses form ID1 if an individual or form ID2 if a company, with section B signed by a conveyancer who has met them and seen their documents. A Chartered Legal Executive, a CLC-regulated licensed probate practitioner or a Scottish solicitor may also sign, and for someone living abroad a lawyer or notary qualified where they live. A paralegal cannot. Where the check is done over a video call the conveyancer completes form ID5 as well and lodges it with the ID1 or ID2, because ID5 is never used on its own. The alternative for an individual is form ID3, verified in person by a doctor, dentist, chartered or certified accountant, regulated financial adviser, MP or Member of the Senedd, and only where both hold a current full UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man passport, have known each other for at least a year, are not related and are not in the same transaction. Every ID form has to be signed and dated no more than three months before it is lodged. Rule 17 of the Land Registration Rules 2003 also lets the registrar ask for identity evidence on any other application where it considers that necessary or desirable. Practice Guide 67, updated 1 September 2026. Where we act, our own confirmation covers our clients. See ID and AML checks.
Third is land tax where the transaction is notifiable: the SDLT5 for Stamp Duty Land Tax in England, or the Welsh Revenue Authority certificate for Land Transaction Tax in Wales. Section 79 of the Finance Act 2003 provides that a notifiable transaction cannot be registered unless the certificate is produced with the application, and section 65 of the Land Transaction Tax and Anti-avoidance of Devolved Taxes (Wales) Act 2017 says the same for Wales. Where no certificate goes in because the transaction is not notifiable, say so and explain why, because HM Land Registry may reject an application that has none where one appears to be needed. See the Stamp Duty and LTT calculator. Fourth is the fee. It is set on value or consideration by the Land Registration Fee Order 2024, in force since 9 December 2024, with some applications carrying none. The reduced electronic scale is narrow. It reaches a transfer or surrender of the whole of a registered title for money under article 3(2), and transfers, assents and charges of whole under articles 4 and 5, but not a first registration, not the registration of a lease, and not anything affecting part of a title. Article 1(2) defines electronic means as delivery under a notice given under Schedule 2 to the rules, and expressly not by email. Scales are published at registration services fees.
What is missing decides what happens, and the split matters. Practice Guide 49 covers rejection, where the papers come back and, in its own words, a rejected application loses its priority. Practice Guide 50 covers requisitions, where the application keeps its place on the day list while you answer. Rejection is now reserved mainly for applications with no prospect of success: an interest that cannot be registered at all, an applicant in whom the legal estate is not vested, or a plan whose extent cannot be identified on the Ordnance Survey map. A missing fee is not an instant rejection either: HM Land Registry normally telephones on the day of receipt and holds the application five working days from that call before rejecting it, and an underpayment is only a requisition. A missing identity form is a requisition too, because Practice Guide 67 says the registry will not reject applications where evidence of identity is completely missing until further notice, though the application can be cancelled if the evidence is then not supplied. A missing consent is a requisition. Rule 16(1) sets a floor of twenty working days to reply, and Practice Guide 50 says the registry allows sixty for most applications, with a warning of cancellation normally sent after forty.
What happens after HM Land Registry receives it?
It is date-stamped on arrival, and that date matters more than anything else about it. Applications are dealt with in the order received, and the register is altered as at the day of lodging, not the day a caseworker reaches it. Where a purchase or new mortgage is involved, an official search before completion gives a priority period of thirty working days, running from the day the search is entered on the day list, in which any competing entry is postponed to your application (rule 131 of the Land Registration Rules 2003 and section 72 of the Land Registration Act 2002, checked 19 September 2026). Your application has to be lodged inside that period, and HM Land Registry asks for it by noon on the last day. See form OS1.
Then it waits. HM Land Registry publishes expected times by application type, and they move: routine updates such as a discharge or a name change are far faster than an application creating or dividing a title (HM Land Registry published figures, checked 19 September 2026). Where the wait causes a problem, expedition can be requested. HM Land Registry publishes two grounds: that the delay would cause legal, financial or personal problems not related to a land transaction, or that it would put a property transaction at risk, its own examples being a refinancing deal and a development. A dependent sale, a remortgage or a court date will usually fit one of those, but the request has to say which and it has to carry evidence, because the guidance says the registry cannot consider a request without it. There is no fee, and where it is granted and nothing else is outstanding the registry aims to deal with the application within ten working days.
If the caseworker finds something wrong, a requisition is raised: a written query, with a period to answer and a reminder before cancellation (rule 16 of the Land Registration Rules 2003 and Practice Guide 50, updated 16 March 2026). Answer it and the application keeps its date. Ignore it and it is cancelled, a fresh fee, a fresh date, anything lodged meanwhile ranking ahead. When it completes, a copy of the amended title is issued; that copy, not the deed, is proof the change happened.