Land Registry Delay - please help!

fittedcarpets

My house sale is about to fall through as we're waiting for Land Registry changes to our lease (a reassignment of ownership of the common parts) the paperwork went in on 5th November. This is our forth buyer we've had in four years - and we are desperate for this sale to go through.

Does anyone know how we could speed things up - our buyers can't get a mortgage without this bit of paper? The Land Registry that they can't guarantee that this can't be done before 31 Jan 2015, but our buyers need to complete on their sale on 25th Jan.

We are pretty desperate so any help or tips welcome!

thanks for your help.

Slayerx

A long shot but is there any type of Indemnity Insurance they could take it to cover this title defect ?

Might want to ask your solicitor.

Richard_Webster

Reassignment of ownership of common parts - this suggests that a number of people are involved - so my thought is that it may not bew the LR themselves (they are pretty quick usually) but that someone hasn't signed a document.

agrinnall

Seems a bit harsh to blame the Land Registry when you've been selling the property for at least the last 4 years, why have you waited until the last minute to do this when it seems to be so important?

fittedcarpets

Thanks all for your replies. I'll try to answer your questions here...

Slayerx: I think the buyers investigated all options - they were very keen to buy the house and have a son now in his first term at the local secondary school. Their lender was adamant that the lease needed changing.

Richard Webster: No, that's not it I'm afraid. The only tenants are ourselves and a national bank. The bank is also the freeholder and has agreed to the Deed of Variation. The "common parts" referred to don't really exist - it's only us who have access to them. The lease seemed to have been drawn up identically to several other bank properties sold off at the same time, some of which did have common parts (with multiple tenants).

agrinnall: it's only the current buyer that required the lease to be altered - their mortgage lender wasn't prepared to lend on the basis of the current one. Others (in the past) have not raised any objections. We started the process in September; it took some time for the freeholder to agree, and the application went to the LR at the beginning of November.

We're not blaming the Land Registry, just hoping that someone has experience of this sort of thing and that there's some way to get it completed before our buyers walk away.

Happy New Year!

martindow

A Land Registry rep often posts here and is very helpful - they may be back on today.

In the meantime have you phoned the Land Registry to ask what is happening and what needs to be done?

Land_Registry

fittedcarpets - it sounds as if the lease is being varied to include additional parts. This means that in effect it has been surrendered and re-granted so the old leasehold title has to be closed and a new one registered for the new extent.

This type of registration is unfortunately taking longer than a more routine one which would not involve creation of a new title and associated plan.

Timescales can vary but it is not uncommon currently for such applications lodged in November to still be pending although the festive period can often provide opportunities for delays to be reduced simply because new and additional work is not being lodged with us.

Although it appears that your conveyancer has already been in touch with us it may be worth checking with them to ensure that the degree of urgency, including the specific completion date of 25th January to see if there is anything we can do?

Whilst I cannot guarantee the registration being completed in time if the application is in order we can help.