Land Registry - Huge Delay

Housebuyer1991

We were informed on the day we went in to sign our contracts (12 weeks after offer was put in) in early December, that there was supposed to be an issue with regards to the house the people in our house are buying.

Their house is freehold and the garage is leasehold. We were told in early December that at a maximum it would take up to 60 days to sort this out with the land registry. They hoped it would be less than 60 days but we were promised it would be no longer than that.

However, we have now been informed that that issue is still ongoing and will not be sorted out until end of feb/early march, resulting in it being a total of 24 weeks before we would be in our house.

We have no idea what is going on, or what, if anything, we can do. Please help.

theartfullodger

What makes you think (is what evidence do you have..) that this is a LR problem not - jusr perhaps - incompetence or delay by your/vendors solicitor, estate agent or yourselves?

Doesn't match my experience, perhaps I'be been lucky.

If it is LR complain, but all organisations make mistakes, especially when Dave is cutting their budgets.

Cheers!

Housebuyer1991

We have been told by our solicitors, the next set of solicitors and the estate agents that it is the land registry that is delaying this. I would love it to not be them because then I'm sure it would be an easier problem to solve. There has been no incompetence or delays from us as we had finished on our part, 4 weeks after the offer was put in. We have been chasing the other people for the last 12- 16 weeks so far, for progress and this is the issue they keep telling us.

kingstreet

I suspect the LR is being blamed for a mess left by a previous conveyance where the title was not properly registered.

G_M

How exactly do you want us to help?

Slip me £500 and I'll pass it on to my mate Joe at the Land Registry and get him to sot this PDQ.

Short of that, be patient. House buying always takes longer than you want, or expect.

kingstreet

Once of my clients submitted his mortgage application on 30 July. The case was offered on 6 August and the case is still outstanding because part of the garden was left out of the last conveyance.

Not much can be done about it, other than wait for it to be resolved. We're trying to get completed on 2 February, otherwise we'll need to get the mortgage offer extended.

Land_Registry

Housebuyer1991 wrote: »

We were informed on the day we went in to sign our contracts (12 weeks after offer was put in) in early December, that there was supposed to be an issue with regards to the house the people in our house are buying.

Their house is freehold and the garage is leasehold. We were told in early December that at a maximum it would take up to 60 days to sort this out with the land registry. They hoped it would be less than 60 days but we were promised it would be no longer than that.

However, we have now been informed that that issue is still ongoing and will not be sorted out until end of feb/early march, resulting in it being a total of 24 weeks before we would be in our house.

We have no idea what is going on, or what, if anything, we can do. Please help.

Housebuyer1991 - i am sorry to hear that there has been such a significant delay. And others have suggested there can be a wide variety of reasons as to why delays occur.

Your original post though makes no mention of specific reason for the delay but merely refers to the House being freehold and the garage leasehold. On it's own that is not unusual and I can't see why that would delay things from our perspective.

If there are issues around the mix of F/H and L/H then they most likely lie with the conveyancer/lender/buyer as from a purely Land Registry perspective they are both valid tenures and people often own the house outright and in effect lease a garage - not always the case but it does occur.

Can you shed any more light on the issue perhaps? - I suspect nobody will be able to resolve it for you but we may at least be able to explain why a delay has occurred and why it is this long.

Housebuyer1991

Hello,

Thank you for your replies, I am glad to hear from a Land Registry representive too.

They have requested that the garage becomes freehold rather than leasehold, as when the property was advertised, it was advertised to come with the garage. However, the solicitors are saying with it actually being leasehold it doesnt technically come with the house and is therefore not part of the contract. In the same street people have changed the garages from leasehold to freehold in the past, where as these tenants apprantly didnt get around to doing that. So we were told in early December that it had been applied for and would take 60 days maximum. Now we are being told actually a decision now wont be made until late February at a minimum, without being giving a reason why. If I could just get your professional opinion that would be great or even some advice, as we have had many different excuses from the solicitor without any proof that what they are saying is correct.

Housebuyer1991

G_M wrote: »

How exactly do you want us to help?

Slip me £500 and I'll pass it on to my mate Joe at the Land Registry and get him to sot this PDQ.

Short of that, be patient. House buying always takes longer than you want, or expect.

Hello, from my thread and last comment, I thought it was quite clear that I wanted advice on whether there is anything we could do to help the situation move along. Or an explanation on what could be causing the delays. I hoped a land registry representative would reply on this matter, which they have. I'm afraid for your advice, I dont think I will be slipping you that £500 any time soon. I do agree that house buying does take a long time, however, 24 weeks is a rarity. Thankyou.

kingstreet

Right. So the issue is that the current owner (lessee) is trying to purchase the freehold for the garage. That is a completely separate transaction to your purchase.

That will require negotiation between freeholder and lessee to establish a price, possibly a surveyor and certainly a pair of solicitors. Once the price is agreed, the legal work can then take place and the garage will become the freehold property of the current lessee.

The final piece of the jigsaw being the alteration at the Land Registry.

Effectively, you have a purchase within a purchase and this can become protracted, particularly if the freeholder doesn't want to sell the freehold, then the issue becomes statutory, rather than voluntary.

A simple purchase can take three or four months with no real issues. A case such as yours can go past six months quite easily. I don't know who has been managing your expectations, but they haven't done a very good job.

Housebuyer1991

kingstreet wrote: »

Right. So the issue is that the current owner (lessee) is trying to purchase the freehold for the garage. That is a completely separate transaction to your purchase.

That will require negotiation between freeholder and lessee to establish a price, possibly a surveyor and certainly a pair of solicitors. Once the price is agreed, the legal work can then take place and the garage will become the freehold property of the current lessee.

The final piece of the jigsaw being the alteration at the Land Registry.

Effectively, you have a purchase within a purchase and this can become protracted, particularly if the freeholder doesn't want to sell the freehold, then the issue becomes statutory, rather than voluntary.

A simple purchase can take three or four months with no real issues. A case such as yours can go past six months quite easily. I don't know who has been managing your expectations, but they haven't done a very good job.

I would liek you to know that these are not our expectations, these are the time scales that we have been given by the land registry company and all of the solicitors involved. We wouldnt have expectations if they didnt keep giving us final dates and then changing them on the day, when if there have been delays they clearly have known about them for a while.

It is the house that the people in our house are buying. As far as we know, we are at the stage where it just needs to be altered by the land registry which we were giving a 60 days max date in early december.