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.