Do property sales ever slip through the land registry net?

Phirefly

I commented on someone elses post previously that a house on our street that sold in January is still not recorded on the land registry database. Its not like its a massive issue or anything, only Mr Phirefly and I are keen for the sold price of this property to be freely available info. This is because we purchased our identical property a few months after for £6k under value (and 6k less than that house) and when we come to sell it would be beneficial for the sold prices on our street to be as accurate as possible for valuation etc. Say we wanted to sell our house next year and the sold price of that house was still not registered, this would not give an accurate picture of the value.

The land registry said on occasion it can take several months for sales to be registered, but does anyone have any knowledge of this? Is there occasion when the purchase slips through the net and is never registered?

As I said, its not like its keeping me awake at night but I am curious.

olly300

I've now noticed 5 properties that have not been put on the land registry database. One was sold over 18 months ago.

So I guess that some places are just missed out. With 2 of the places other properties have been sold with in that time for more money so that place being missing doesn't matter. In the 3rd location properties are not sold according to the database with that much frequently so the missing places do matter. However due to the number of for sale signs around I doubt this is true.

Phirefly

:mad: thats super annoying! I'll be well narked if it never shows up. Luckily for us, another one on the street has just gone on with an asking price 2k higher than the last so fingers crossed that one sells for even more and it actually goes on the land registry this time

silvercar

I've known houses suddenly appear 5 months after they've sold.

Eyesparky

There is usually a delay ... you can't expect a bureaucracy to get a hurry on . I have noticed some that don't seem to appear for over a year for some reason. One in particular that I tried to buy never appeared but this was a sale by tender from the local council (I was convinced at the time that they sold for well below my bid to an associate). I doubt I will ever find out now.

Phirefly

Fair enough. We're certainly not planning on moving for at least a couple of years and if the doom mongerers and HPCers have their way it will all be irrelevant anyway!

mrsS_2

my house purchase never went on-bought in march 2002- lots on before and after though, so think it must just be a blip.

webmister22

Below is a question from the net house prices Q&A.

What properties arent included in your database?

As part of our licence agreement, there are certain properties which are excluded from our database, these include the following for England and Wales:

1. Land Sales
2. All commercial transactions
3. Transfer, conveyances, assignments or leases at a premium with nominal rent which are:

* ‘Right to buy’ sales at a discount
* subject to a lease
* subject to an existing mortgage
* to effect the sale of a share in a property
* by way of a gift
* by way of exchange
* under a Compulsory Purchase order
* under a court order
* to Trustees
* Vesting Deeds
* Transmissions or Assents
* of more than one property
* Leases for 21 years or less

As regards to records in Scotland, these will include residential, commercial and Land sales.

I hope this helps

Webmister22

ehs_3

If you want full details go to the Land Registry website https://www.landregistry.gov.uk and seach for "Land Registry Practice Guide 7". In theory this "should" clarify things though looking at it myself I'm not sure...

In the guide it states this

"Will Land Registry always enter the price? No. We will only make an entry when it is practicable to do so. If, for example, the consideration is dependant on provisions in documents we don’t see, or cannot be calculated at the time of registration then we will not make any entry. We will not raise a requisition merely to improve the price paid or value stated information in our possession, although we may need to requisition to ensure that stamp duty has been correctly paid. We will omit the entry if the entry would be misleading, for example, when the price paid represents only a half share of the value of the property."

However I know for a fact this is not the case. I have seen 50% shared equity ownership prices paid registered as the sold price on https://www.houseprices.co.uk and you can see that just the year previous the Sold price had been almost double.

There will be some cases too where the price may not be registered such as if the property is sold off as part of a portfolio of properties. You will also find that from time to time for some reason it takes an age for the price to be registered.

One thing to be wary of is new build prices as these will state a figure but often the developer has gifted a large amount of cash back to the buyer and so the real paid price is a lot lower than the Sold price suggests. Now that wouldn't be in the interest of the developer or the Treasury who charge stamp duty against the official price, would it...?

Phirefly

thanks for the input, all very interesting.

As far as I can glean, the sale in question was a standard affair, a private sale of private property, all very ordinary.

The only thing out of the ordinary perhaps is the fact that the property was sold on behalf of the deceased by remaining children, maybe thats why its taking a while for the paperwork to move through the system in this case.

Just goes to show though how you can't rely on land registry's nearby sold prices when valuing a property.

paddy's_mum

I've always found the Land Registry to be extremely helpful, no matter what the nature of the query that I have raised. Why not just simply phone the office that deals with the area the property is in and ask them to answer/explain. The worst they can do is say 'oops' or 'don't know yet till all the paperwork is in'. Might save you a bit of fretful wondering.