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The Information Infrastructure of Land Registration in England: a Sociology of Real Estate at the Intersection of Elites, Markets and Statistics

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The Information Infrastructure of Land Registration in England: a Sociology of Real Estate at the Intersection of Elites, Markets and Statistics LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS The Information Infrastructure of Land Registration in England: A Sociology of Real Estate at the Intersection of Elites, Markets and Statistics Timothy Monteath A Thesis submitted to the Department of Sociology of the London School of Economics and Political Science for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, 29th January 2021 Declaration I certify that the Thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this Thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This Thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my Thesis consists of 92,910 words. 1 Abstract This Thesis presents a sociology of the development of land registration in England and examines its relationship to understandings of the housing market, statistics, and elites. Through approaching land registration as an information infrastructure, this research prioritizes the previously overlooked foundations of the housing market, that underpin how it operates and through which it becomes known. To do so, this Thesis combines historical methodologies with computational methods utilising contemporary big data. It seeks to track how land registration in England from its 19th century origins, solidified into an information infrastructure and by utilising this understanding to ask questions of the modern land registration, highlighting these ongoing legacies of elite power, through an analysis of its transactional data. This Thesis is split into three cases. Firstly, an examination of the early land registry, its legal and socio-material organization and standardization, addressing the context of elite aristocratic power in which the system arose. Secondly, an analysis of housing market statistics in the UK, addresses how their relationship to the information infrastructure of land registration has allowed for the exclusion of elite housing practices from official statistics. The third case study, through utilising computational methods, paints a different picture of the UK housing market by adding back in the ‘missing’ houses of contemporary elites, which are owned through offshore shell companies. This research therefore contributes to the study of inequality in the UK through revealing the extent of elite housing wealth held in offshore jurisdictions. Arguing that in order to better identify the relationship between the housing market and elite power the importance of understanding land registration as an information infrastructure underpinning it, cannot be understated. 2 Acknowledgements To Danielle for whose love, support and insight I cannot find words... Without her this Thesis would never have been finished and I to whom I will be eternally thankful. To my parents Ian Monteath and Vivien Green, for their love and support which enabled me to start this PhD and for their constant support in all my endevours. The inspiration for this PhD came from watching two friends collaborate on a project while we were all studying together at Cambridge. I would like to thank David Jones for setting me onto the houses of the super-rich in London and for all the times we spent together exploring Kensington and Chelsea together (and to all of rabble.place for their eternal hospitality). Lewis Mervin deserves a special thanks for inspiring me to take up programming and setting me on a path which made the research in this Thesis possible. A special thanks is due to Daniel McArthur, Alejandro De Coss Corzo, Kristina Kolbe and Nabila Fatima for their friendship and comradeship throughout my time spent at the LSE as well as to countless many others. I would like to thank Elisabeth Schimpfossl¨ for all her encouragement, suggestions and advice into the research process during all the times we have worked together. Talking through my work with Aaron Reeves has been invaluable to my research and I owe him a special thanks for inviting me to the T.H.I.N.K. network and helping me understand possibilities of researching housing. A thanks which also extends to Rebecca Bentley and Emma Baker for introducing me to the community of housing studies researchers. While researching this PhD I have also undertaken a Doctoral internship and the Alan Turing Institute and attended the Oxford Summer School for Computational Social Science and I would like to thank all of those involved for these wonderful opportunities. Finally, I would like thank my supervisor Mike Savage for his advice and encouragement throughout this process. A special thanks is also due to Roger Burrows and David Pinzer for their careful engagement work and excellent questions posed to me at my Viva Voce. 3 Contents 1 Chapter 1 — Introduction 13 2 Chapter 2 — Literature Review: Housing, Elites and Inequality through Infrastructure 25 Housing, Elites and Inequality . 25 Working through Infrastructure . 42 3 Chapter 3 — Methodology 51 Research Motivations . 51 Data Gathering and Case Selection . 55 Data Analysis and Ethics . 60 4 Chapter 4 — The Foundation of an Infrastructure: Unpacking the Blackbox of Registration 66 Introduction . 66 Land Registration before the Land Registry . 69 The Registries of Middlesex & East Riding . 70 The Real Property Commission . 78 Towards a System of Land Registration . 84 Ownership by Title . 84 The Establishment of the Land Registry . 90 Becoming an Infrastructure . 96 The Early Land Registry . 97 Mapping Title to the Land . 99 Registering London . 109 Conclusion . 116 5 Chapter 5 — Elite Power, Land Law and the Blackbox of Registration 121 Introduction . 121 Opening the Blackbox of Land Registration . 125 Land Law and Power in England Before 18th Century . 128 The Dispositive of Copyhold . 128 Legal Complexity and Elite Power . 132 Estates in the Land . 139 The Landed Estate as Elite Power . 139 The ‘English Land Question’ . 144 Towards a System of Land Registration . 147 4 Land Law Reform in the 19th century . 147 The End of the Land Question . 152 Conclusion . 156 6 Chapter 6: The Production of Housing Market Statistics 160 Introduction . 160 The Property Market and Statistics before 1945 . 162 The Making of a Market . 163 The Secrecy of the Register . 165 Towards a Housing Market . 167 Housing Market Statistics 1945 - 1990 . 170 The Expansion of Compulsory Registration . 171 The Secrecy of The Register in the 20th Century . 176 Housing Market Statistics 1945 - 1990 . 178 Towards the Creation of the HPI . 188 The Performativity of the DoE Index . 189 Housing Market Statistics 1990 - 2016 . 193 Conclusion . 205 7 Chapter 7: Quantifying the Housing Market 207 Introduction . 207 The Making of a Measure . 210 Quantifying Housing . 211 Creating the HPI . 220 Beyond Land Registration Data . 229 Underneath the HPI: Exploring the Land Registry Price Paid Data . 238 Prices . 238 Deciles . 245 Gini....................................... 250 Conclusion . 256 8 Chapter 8: A Breakdown of the Information Infrastructure of Land Registration? — Working through Land Registry Data 259 Introduction . 259 Big Data, Sociological Research and Investigative Methods . 262 Introducing the Datasets . 267 Land Registry Data . 267 Data Leaked to Private Eye . 273 Energy Performance Certification Data . 273 What Can Be Learned From the OCOD Data? . 276 Bringing the Datasets Together . 283 Data Quality Issues . 284 Merging Datasets . 289 Locating Elite Housing . 294 The Value of Elite Housing . 306 Correcting Price Information . 306 The Price of Enveloping . 312 Conclusion . 318 5 9 Chapter 9: Conclusion 322 Introduction . 322 The Historic Development of the Land Registry . 324 Summary of Findings . 324 Discussion and Contributions . 326 The Production of Housing Market Statistics in the UK . 327 Summary of Findings . 327 Discussion and Contributions . 329 Adding the Offshore Back In . 330 Discussion and Contributions . 332 Future Research . 333 6 List of Figures 4.1 Tabular Index Proposed by the Real Property Commission . 81 4.2 Register of Estates with Indefensible Title . 93 4.3 The Record of Title to Lands on the Register . 94 4.4 Register of Mortgages and Incumbrances . 95 4.5 Example of a High Detail Map . 104 4.6 Example of a Low Detail Map . 105 4.7 Example of the schema for General Map with Parcels Index . 114 4.8 Example of the schema for General Map with Parcels Index . 115 6.1 Mortgages by Lender Type — Reproduced from (Casu and Gall 2016, pp32)...................................... 185 6.2 Divergence Between DoE/ODPM, Halifax and Nationwide HPI by Index Points . 187 6.3 The Divergence between ONS and LR house price indices for London 203 7.1 Average House Price by Country, Historic (HPI Derived) . 240 7.2 Average House Price by Government Office Region, (HPI Derived) . 242 7.3 Average House Price England (excluding London) vs London, HPI derived.
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