Possesionary title

squashy

I inherited my Gran's house in 2006 and despite numrous efforts we could not locate the title deeds anywhere( we think she may of thrown them out sometime), The house was bought from new in 1953 and never registered and as she never moved the house was never registered with the land registry. When i came to register the house i was granted possesionary title as the origonal deeds could not be found, I didnt think this was a problem until now, I have been advised by a solicitor that i will not be able to sell the house until i have had the title changed to absolute after 12 years, Can anybody tell me if they belive this to be true or can offer any advise ? surley this is quite a common occurance , im really worried now that i am stuck here for the next 7 years

Richard_Webster

You might have difficulties but I think it is a bit over the top saying you can't sell with a possessory title in this kind of circumstance.

Usually you will have to offer a possessory title indemnity policy and this will cost a few hundred pounds. The buyer's solicitors will want to see what evidence was provided to the Land Registry to get the Possessory Title.

timmyt

squashy wrote: »

I inherited my Gran's house in 2006 and despite numrous efforts we could not locate the title deeds anywhere( we think she may of thrown them out sometime), The house was bought from new in 1953 and never registered and as she never moved the house was never registered with the land registry. When i came to register the house i was granted possesionary title as the origonal deeds could not be found, I didnt think this was a problem until now, I have been advised by a solicitor that i will not be able to sell the house until i have had the title changed to absolute after 12 years, Can anybody tell me if they belive this to be true or can offer any advise ? surley this is quite a common occurance , im really worried now that i am stuck here for the next 7 years

you will find many conveyancers (not conveyancing 'solicitors' as they know what they are doing) do not even understand what possessory title is and certianly not what the action plan is for selling.

Richard is correct, you offer the proeprty with possessory title, a sworn statement of your family's knowledge, and an indemnity policy.

Good luck, but make sure you choose a good solicitor -

Get a Lexcel accredited solicitor firm http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/product...es/lexcel.page by searching here against your Town http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/choosin...asolicitor.law and make sure:

1. the one solicitor/legal executive does conveyancing as their only work and will be the same person from start to finish
2. the team around them is enough so that person is not overworked
3. they do not close at 5pm or at lunch
4. they give you their personal email and direct dial phone number
5. they do not call themselves a case handler or something similar
6. they state they 'have no hidden charges'
7. that the name of their firm does not somehow indicate how great they are

motherofstudents

Our last house we only had possessory title but we moved after 3 years. We had to get an indemnity policy, wasn't very expensive and had no problems at all. Our solicitor (not conveyancer) told us about it when we were in the process of buying the house and I was pretty scared - I thought someone could turn up and say they owned it! - but the solicitor reassured us that it would be ok, and it was.

squashy

Thankyou all for this most helpful and some what reassuring advise, Will contact one of the solicitors timmyt from that link you gave me and will look into Indemnity insurance (i had never heard of this before) but having just done some online research www.titlesolve.com seems to offer a good service, Will definatley get a good solicitor onto this though, thanks again everyone.

Richard_Webster

As far as indemnity insurance is concerned normally your solicitor will organise this for you as the companies that do this kind of insurance prefer dealing with solicitors because they understand the technicalities and the insurer doesn't have to spend time explaining it all to a lay person.