In 1857 a government committee said there should be a record of land. The Land Registry started after the Land Registry Act 1862. The failure of this law led to a new law in 1875. But this law was also a failure because persons could decide if they wanted to record their land, and most persons decided not to. In 1897 a new law forced persons in London to record their land when they sold it. Step by step this law was applied to the rest of England and Wales by 1990. A new law – the Land Registration Act 2002 – modernised the law and made possible the electronic sale of land.