Great news for Conveyancers! From October 2004, you will be able to complete your land Transaction Return (LTR) form online using DPS. This means that you will no longer have to fill in the form manually as all the information will be entered automatically.

At DPS Software we intend to be up and running ready for the launch in October. Our systems will be fully compatible with Inland Revenue guidelines.

This is just a small part of the Governments' move towards e-conveyancing. They are in fact developing a full online service which will come into effect in October. This development will enable the submission of the LTR over the internet using either the Inland Revenue online service, or Third party forms and case management systems.

Once the LTR has been completed and sent, you will receive notification with a certificate proving that the Inland Revenue have received your form. This procedure should take on average 1 minute. After receiving the notification from the Inland Revenue, solicitors will have up to 30 days to pay.

The returned notification will now include a Unique Reference Number (URN) this number is generated by the Inland Revenue and is used on pay slips. The URN is needed in order for Government Departments to identify property using this unique reference.

The whole process will be much quicker as it will be completed in minutes rather than days. At the moment payment cannot be done electronically; this is still unfortunately a manual process

For further information please contact your Account Manager on 020 8804 1022, or alternatively you may also want to visit the Inland Revenue website on www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk