This is satire. Events, dialogue and quotations in this article are invented for comic effect. It is not a factual news report.

Plans to make Land Registry information freely accessible could face resistance from landowners, raising the prospect that the public may continue paying to discover who owns the places where the public lives.

Critics of removing the paywall cite privacy and commercial concerns. Campaigners say the public should not need to pay to investigate why a field, building or entire village appears to belong to someone who has never been seen.

A fictional landowner said free access would create unnecessary curiosity. “People might start asking questions about the land,” he said, from an estate whose boundary fence was visible from three counties. “And then they might ask who owns the fence.”

A working group is considering whether consultation documents should themselves be available without charge. Under a proposed two-tier system, citizens could read the summary for free but pay to discover what it means.