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Undertaking for new lease extension

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Newtown
Newtown Posts: 42 Forumite
in House buying, renting & selling
Buying a Flat : seller is in the process of extending the lease to 999 years but its very busy at land registry at the moment . (They have not given any time scales)

The EA has said that the seller is happy to give an undertaking that lease will be extended.

Any pitfalls of doing this ? or should we wait until the lease is extended ?

(Sorry i am new to this game. Any help appreciated)

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  • Land_Registry
    Land_Registry Posts: 5,782 Organisation Representative
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    Current average timescale is 57 working days. If there is a linked transaction, such as a confirmed onward sale, then the conveyancer should get in touch with those details and ask us to expedite. If we can we will and that should shorten the timescale to a few weeks.Everything then depends on the application being in order.

    As far as the undertaking is concerned such things are a common conveyancing tool. How they are now viewed can vary depending on the experiences of your own conveyancer and of course the wording of the undertaking. Traditionally they seek to cover you with solving any issues that may arise and like any other form of insurance are perfect tools if nothing goes wrong - hence mention of 'experiences' as it can be more of an issue of it being easier to wait than try and tie them to the undertaking after the event.

    Undertakings are commonplace but the views of some conveyancers, in my experience, have changed down the years. Although that experience is largely based on people sharing experiences around waiting rather than those who go with the undertaking and everything is fine re the registration.

    Would be very interested to read other posts on this one re views/experiences. As well as your own conveyancer's view.
    “Official Company Representative
    I am the official company representative of Land Registry. MSE has given permission for me to post in response to queries about the company, so that I can help solve issues. You can see my name on the companies with permission to post list. I am not allowed to tout for business at all. If you believe I am please report it to forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com This does NOT imply any form of approval of my company or its products by MSE"
  • silvercar
    silvercar Posts: 46,960 Ambassador
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    Current average timescale is 57 working days.

    Wow! That is nearly 12 weeks. Is it my imagination or have these timescales increased massively in recent years? Do you keep statistics eg how long ago would the same activity have taken 10 years ago?
    I'm a Forum Ambassador on The Coronavirus Boards as well as the housing, mortgages and student money saving boards. I volunteer to help get your forum questions answered and keep the forum running smoothly. Forum Ambassadors are not moderators and don't read every post. If you spot an illegal or inappropriate post then please report it to forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com (it's not part of my role to deal with this). Any views are mine and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.com.
  • eddddy
    eddddy Posts: 16,441 Forumite
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    Newtown wrote: »
    Any pitfalls of doing this ? or should we wait until the lease is extended ?

    Are you buying with a mortgage?

    If so, is your mortgage dependent on the extended lease, and if so, is your mortgage lender happy with an undertaking?

    If they're not happy, obviously you can't proceed.

    As a rule of thumb, mortgage lenders tend to be very conservative about this kind of thing. So if a mortgage lender is happy with the undertaking, that would make me feel a lot happier about it.
  • Land_Registry
    Land_Registry Posts: 5,782 Organisation Representative
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    silvercar wrote: »
    Wow! That is nearly 12 weeks. Is it my imagination or have these timescales increased massively in recent years? Do you keep statistics eg how long ago would the same activity have taken 10 years ago?

    They have increased in recent years and do ebb and flow depending on a number of factors including workload and available resource.
    10 years ago it would have been 'quicker' in average timescales but if you go back another 10 years it was 'slower'. When I first started some 35 years ago some registrations took over a year.

    Our aim is to get the average down to around 30 working days by March next year. We are trialling a number of processes to achieve this so the current average may take a while to reduce.

    In most cases registration is the very end of the buying/selling process and any delay in registering has no impact. That does not excuse the delay in any way but in days of olde home owners did not move so frequently/quickly and remortgaging was a lot rarer than it is now for example.

    We do expedite applications where there is an urgency such as an onward sale or remortgage or some form of hardship. So if things get tight re an onward sale for example we can shorten the timescale.
    “Official Company Representative
    I am the official company representative of Land Registry. MSE has given permission for me to post in response to queries about the company, so that I can help solve issues. You can see my name on the companies with permission to post list. I am not allowed to tout for business at all. If you believe I am please report it to forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com This does NOT imply any form of approval of my company or its products by MSE"
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