On 20 May PPR responded to a call for input by the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing for his forthcoming report on land governance and the right to adequate housing. As part of the research for that submission, we looked at NI’s system for registering land ownership -- unfamiliar territory, but a space in which we came across all-too-familiar concerns.

Since the late 19th century NI has had a ordnance survey-based land registry system. The current Land & Property Services (LPS) is part of the NI Department of Finance. It holds three registries: the Land Registry records map-based registrations and guarantees legal title; the Registry of Deeds registers documents for unregistered land; and the Statutory Charges Register records certain restrictions or conditions affecting properties. 

In April 2025 the Department of Finance awarded a minimum 15-year, £125m contract for a new digital land registry system to the Japanese company Fujitsu – despite the company having publicly promised to pause all public sector bidding in the UK.

Fujitsu had made this promise as the company which provided the UK Post Office with the Horizon IT system, notorious for failings which led to the wrongful prosecutions for theft of a reported 900 sub-postmasters between 1999 and 2015 (including in NI) and to the havoc in the personal, family and professional lives that ensued. The scandal, described as the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice, led Fujitsu to announce in early 2024 voluntary limitations on its UK actions -- including a pause on bids for new government work. NI’s Department of Finance was reported to be working closely with the Cabinet Office in Westminster on the issue of Fujitsu contracts.

Over the course of 2024, a rival IT firm legally challenged the DOF’s decision-making during the bidding and evaluation process; the NI Finance Minister faced questions from legislators about the potential awarding of public contracts to Fujitsu; and the NI Assembly’s Committee for Finance formally queried whether the Department “considers Fujitsu run systems safe and reliable”. Nonetheless in April 2025 the Department announced that Fujitsu had won the digital land registry contract.

Meanwhile the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry -- begun in 2020 -- completed its public hearings phase and has begun compiling its final report. The authorities responsible for decision-making around where to award the contract to digitise the land registry here owe the public an explanation of their reasoning – and of how they plan to avoid a repeat of the pitfalls of Fujitsu’s all-too-familiar track record.