Digital Discharge Service

About DDS

The Digital Discharge Service (DDS) allows agents to use the RoS online service to submit discharges of standard securities. The system automatically generates an electronic deed based on the particular security in a Title that they select.

Over 40% of all Discharges of Standard Securities are submitted as DDS applications. Currently 16 Lenders have signed up to the service and more are registering all the time.

The electronic deed template is automatically populated with details from the C section and the Title address is applied as the Applicant's designation. The agent has the opportunity to change this designation if it is not correct (but they sometimes forget to do this). The deed is signed with a digital signature which each agent has gained through a rigorous validation process with RoS. As a result the deed is highly unlikely to be invalid.

Since the current deed template is very simple, only discharges of single standard securities over one Title are able to be submitted. There is also currently no opportunity for the lender to state how they acquired the right to discharge a security so you may notice a mismatch of lenders. For example Lloyds Bank PLC are permitted to discharge Bank of Scotland, Halifax and Birmingham Midshires securities. Digital discharges also require the current security to have a creditor code so any securities with manually entered details for the lender will still be discharged by the standard route. However any mismatches will have been agreed with the relevant areas within RoS.

Once the agent submits their application, the automated deed is sent to the lender to be digitally signed. Once the deed is signed, then the system will automatically generate a CMS case and an application in LRS which settlers will be able to take on at Intake Settle. 

Automated cases

Approximately 75% of Digital Discharges are now fully automated. This means that after the applications are automatically generated in LRS, the system then removes the relevant security and completes the case without any human intervention. Only very straightforward applications are processed in this way and there is a higher amount of post-registration quality checks on these cases to ensure that the correct process has been followed. There is a decision matrix which the system uses to decide which applications can be automated and which require a human to process. Factors such as notes present on the title, number of securities on the title, references to other entries, security being over part of the title and amended applicant designation in the electronic deed are all considered and the application will be routed accordingly.

DDS decision tree v4.0.pdf

DDS Categories

There are 3 DDS categories;

• F1 - Standard. This is the default option and applies to all DDS cases where there are no other pending applications. This category has a 2 working day turnaround time (e.g. if a case is submitted at any time on a Monday, it needs to be processed and completed by the end of Tuesday).
• F2 - Complex. This is technically for any cases that need to be referred. However this category only has a 2 working day turnaround time so this category is not often used.
• F3 - Pending related application. This applies to all DDS cases where there is another case (or cases) pending that will need to be attached. This category has a 90 day turnaround time. (For this reason F3 is also used for any rejected/referred cases).

About CMS

Follow this link to learn more about CMS in general.