Lost Leasehold Agreement

SecondTimeBuyer

Richard_Webster wrote: »

If you have official copies of a title register showing a 999 year lease then the Land Registry have some explaining to do as to where that lease has gone. Get those copies out and track down that title number.

In order to register the new lease in the first place they must have had the original and a spare copy out of which they could create an official copy. What seems to have happened is that loads of documents were sent by the Land Registry to an outside company for scanning in when everything went electronic and a few got lost. If that's the case here then you may be entitled to compensation from the Land Registry.

Yes I have records from the title number showing that a 999 year lease was granted in 2003 commencing in 1971. I have now phoned and emailed the land registry and they have confirmed that the 999 year lease is showing on their records but they don't actually have the lease!

propertyman wrote: »

I was valuing the freeholds of a client's two blocks with a complicated history of title and visited HMLR and they recalled the file from Portsmouth.

Low and behold there was huge section, outlined in red by HMLR !, about contributions to the shared drive and parking areas which was supposed to be in the register, but which was never done.

It had been filed away with the old titles of two of the (several) old houses that were demolished to make up the north end of the site but which had been merged into one title.

I suggest as RW' suggests, they are probably mis-marked, hopefully in the file.

This is not very re-assuring!!! Hopefully they are mis-marked as you have said and are in the file.


If the Land Registry has lost the lease from 2003, what is my next step?

SecondTimeBuyer

Another thing that has cropped into my head is that should my conveyancing solicitors from our purchase of the property obtained a copy of the lease from 2003? I.E. are they at fault for not obtaining the correct lease and sending an incorrect lease to my mortgage company?

Richard_Webster

So we know the Land Registry acknowledges that the lease was granted. Your solicitors should have a file with a draft of it in it. Can they not find anything?

If the LR have lost the lease then they should pay compensation for your losses, certainly for a missing document indemnity policy, but hopefully for the cost of reconstituting the tile.

You might end up with your solicitor finding a copy that hadn't been completed but which he is fairly sure represents the final wording. He could then do a statutory declaration explaining that he acted for you on the purchase and to the best of his knowledge and belief the copy draft lease attached to his declaration represents the format of the completed lease.

The fact that your solicitor has not suggested this kind of thing is rather worrying and I think you need to push him to do more. Certainly he should be finding out about compensation from the Registry for them losing the lease.

SecondTimeBuyer

I have spoken to the Land Registry call centre and they can only see en electronic copy of the 99 year (old) lease on their system, not the 999 year lease. The 999 year lease is showing on the title, so they must have at least registered it! The requested that I email them and they will search their files for a hard copy, which they advised may have escaped being digitised.

With regards to compensation, this is encouraging as I would be extremely upset if I had to renew my lease from 57 years up to 957 years.

With regards to my conveyancing solicitor he has no copy of the 999 year (current) lease, and from the information I have obtained so far I believe he has never had a copy of the 999 year lease. Should the conveyancing solicitor received a copy of the 999 year lease (from the seller / or Land Registry) to pass onto myself and / or my mortgage company when I purchased the property? If so should I be concerned that they have not received it and have passed on old (99 year) documents?

SecondTimeBuyer

propertyman wrote: »

But your solicitor will have corresponded with the landlords solicitors -they know who they are .....

Very welcome

They will find out out far more readily than an old agent who will be reluctant to pay for archive files on a five year old instruction.

As it happened in 2003 they likely will not have kept the files after 7 years ( 6 plus 1 just in case).

After spending hours on the phone I have now chased down and have been in contact with the previous managing agents solicitors. They have confirmed that they do not keep documnets for more than 7 years, so as nearly 10 years has lapsed they definitely do not have them.

My last hope is that the Land Registry has a paper copy and if they don't I think we will have to get a new lease drawn up based on the old conditions. :mad:

propertyman

I did not mention Richard's suggestion of a stat dec or indemnity insurance as while they do the job, they make future sales and lending less than straightforward should any one feel nervous about them.

If as suggested earlier you, the freeholder ( the residents company) and your mortgagee are all in agreement that there was a 999 year lease, and as I expect, and hope, that all the flat leases are in the same form, then you all agree a surrender of the 2003 lease, and grant a new one.

You should be

a; looking at insurance polices for legal expenses cover

b; contacting HMLR to make further search and look into compensation for expenses for either RW's most worthy suggestion or my (excellent ) one.

SecondTimeBuyer

propertyman wrote: »

I did not mention Richard's suggestion of a stat dec or indemnity insurance as while they do the job, they make future sales and lending less than straightforward should any one feel nervous about them.

If as suggested earlier you, the freeholder ( the residents company) and your mortgagee are all in agreement that there was a 999 year lease, and as I expect all the flat leases are in the same form then you all agree a surrender of the 2003 lease, grant a new one.

You should be

a; looking at insurance polices for legal expenses cover

b; contacting HMLR to make further search and look into compensation for expenses for either RW's most worthy suggestion or my (excellent ) one.

Thank you for your advice. I agree that should the Land Registry not have a paper copy on file that we will need to surrender the 2003 lease and have a new lease drawn on the same (or similar) terms.

My main query is in relation to the convayencing in 2007 when we purchased the property, should my solicitor have provided me with the 2003 lease? If so should we approach them to make a contribution towards the costs for drawing up the new lease?

AMO

I think as the other person says, try and check the lease of your neighbours.

I have never heard of a 999 year lease. There are reasons why leaseholds have 99 years on them. Even if it were possible to get 999 years, it wouldn't make sense if the original from 1971 was only 99 years.

I can only presume that the flats weren't selling and that was some kind of bargaining factor?

But the primary reason for flats to be leasehold is that they become dangerous after a couple of hundred years and they can rebuild the structure after the lease runs out.

propertyman

SecondTimeBuyer wrote: »

My main query is in relation to the convayencing in 2007 when we purchased the property, should my solicitor have provided me with the 2003 lease? If so should we approach them to make a contribution towards the costs for drawing up the new lease?

I am surprised that they do not have a file or scanned copy ( we maintian all leases licences and tenancies digitally as well on the permanent paper copy file as long as they are current or someone is getting a spanking) but it seems odd that they have no record nor that the lender from 2007 has one.

In 2007 I would be almost certain that at some point they downloaded a copy simply to review the lease are report on it to you and the lender.. HMLR should have a record of any user accessing those records.

It is certainly worth asking for that to be reviewed by the managing partner their internal process if they have one instead.

The problem is though that how were they responsible for the land registry losing the lease?

SecondTimeBuyer

AMO, it's definitely a 999 year lease and I have the original marketing material, the report from my conveyancing solicitor, and the land registry title search all confirming that it is a 999 year lease from 01.01.1971 granted in 2003.

Additionally a search on the freehold confirms that as of 2007 only one of flats did not renew their lease to extend it to 999 years. I assume that this must have been something to do with the arrangement when the block bought the freehold.