Registration involves the official registration of rights to property so that they enjoy legal protection against third parties. It is common for documents relating to the transfer of ownership and loans for real estate to be registered, as well as car loans that give the lender a mortgage on the vehicle against the loan. Until now, this service has required visits to District Commissioners' offices for stamping printed originals on paper, which significantly slows down the processing time and completion of real estate and car purchases.
The electronic registration project is about a central back-end system that allows registration applicants, primarily financial institutions and real estate agents, to complete their registrations electronically and automatically. This enables necessary documents to be registered within minutes, eliminating the need to visit the District Commissioners' offices.
The project has been in development since 2019 and is a collaborative project between Digital Iceland, District Commissioners, Ministry of Justice, Registers Iceland and Housing and Construction Authority. Electronic registrations are a key factor in Iceland's becoming a leader in digital governance.
Goal
The goal is for all registrations to have an electronic interface, allowing data to be submitted electronically, regardless of whether the processing is automated or manual.
The goal is to have 80% of all registrations processed automatically, either fully or partially.
Project components
The project is divided into five streams
Analysis and communication with stakeholders
Software development - web services
Preliminaries and corrections of data
Act on registrations and fees for them
Act on mortgage bonds
A significant milestone was achieved when electronic cancellations became possible. This facilitated the cancellation of mortgage documents once loans were paid off or cancelled.
Arion Bank carried out the first cancellation of a mortgage document on February 4, 2021. The other commercial banks and pension funds followed and took the first step to electronic registrations.
As COVID-19 spread worldwide, the need to modify loan terms through extensions or other adjustments grew significantly. Since the project had already established a foundation for electronic entries in the registry system, a decision was made to allow banks to process these entries electronically.
Landsbankinn was the first bank to take advantage of this addition, and soon after, other banks followed suit. In total, almost 12,000 changes to terms and conditions were registered in this way, saving the banks and district magistrates countless manual processes that would otherwise have had to be done on paper.
The option to register a new mortgage document was introduced in September 2021. With that action, loan companies could simultaneously submit registrations for refinancing car and real estate loans and new car loans for electronic registration and cancel old loans.
Arion Bank carried out the first cancellation of a mortgage document on February 4, 2021. The other commercial banks and pension funds followed and took the first step to electronic registrations.
Lykill was the first credit company to register an electronic mortgage document for a customer's car purchase.
The option to register a change of creditors was released in January 2022. With this entry, transferring a mortgage document between lenders and thus changing creditors is possible.
Landsbankinn was the first credit institution to register a mortgage deed for real estate. It was a refinancing of a loan that the bank already had. Other commercial banks have since followed suit.
The function to transfer a loan debtor was released in February 2022. This feature allows a loan to be transferred from one debtor to another. For instance, this can occur when a property buyer assumes a loan already attached to that property.
When releasing the service for creditor transfer, the need to be able to run the same operation on multiple mortgage documents at once became apparent. For example, when credit companies merge, the claims must be identified and transferred between the companies. This addition was added in September 2022.
The possibility of registering a waiver following a purchase agreement was added in March 2023. With that action, real estate agents could complete the final steps of a real estate purchase and register the waiver.
The first real estate agencies connected to the electronic land registry web services in April 2023.
The first surrender was registered in April 2023. The real estate agency Ás was first created, and the real estate agency Procura followed closely behind with its first surrender.
The District Commissioners of South Iceland submitted the first registration request for seizure electronically in May 2023.
In May 2023, Lykill registered the first batch of creditor transfers electronically.
Landsbankinn was the first to register a security deed electronically.
