Rx3 form - urgent help needed

Land_Registry

Flower4156 - thanks for sharing. We are checking what has happened and why and will post again asap. This means contacting the caseworker who dealt with the case initially.

We will still post again on MSE to explain what has happened and next steps but I'll edit this thread to remove our email address once we have posted. You may wish to delete your own post now referring to the title number.

Flower4156

Thanks. I deleted my title number in my message and sent you email as requested. Many thanks for your help and support.

Flower4156

Many thanks to Land Registry Representative who seems trying his best to help us.

Flower4156

Oy, yes. Another thing was- just checked my bank account- we were charged £ 40.00 despite Land Registry returned all papers back and rejected it.

Land_Registry

Flower4156 - I hope to cover this off today and explain a little more about the wider issues involved. A resolution is though hopefully not too far off now.

Re the fee aspect - the cheque is processed on receipt of an application so will have been banked very quickly after separation from the actual application.
If the application, as in this case, was then cancelled a separate refund has to be authorised/arranged, so you will get a refund cheque shortly.

Land_Registry

Further investigation on our part has confirmed where the issue lies from a registration perspective.
We have communicated with Flower4156 separately and explained what next steps are required to remove the noted lease taking into account the change in ownership and how the parent's beneficial interests (shares) were to be dealt with.

In summary and for the benefit of others
The property is in the joint names of both parents.
The noted lease was originally granted to both parents but was never merged
The joint tenancy was severed a while back and for reasons relating to what might happen in the future re both parents as explained by OP .

As such and in order to then merge the unregistered lease back in to the freehold and registered title it is necessary to confirm that the lease is in the same ownership as the freehold and what has happened (if anything) re the shares which each parent held following the severance.

The ownership aspect is fairly straightforward but it is the beneficial interest/shares which requires further investigation and confirmation.
This is very similar to how you would deal with the removal of the form A restriction the OP originally mentioned but the removal of the form A restriction and cancellation of the noted lease are in fact two quite separate applications/considerations. For example applying and removing the form A restriction would not then pave the way for the noted lease to also be removed.

From the information provided here and directly by the OP I would not anticipate any further issues providing the supporting evidence (probate/wills for both parents and stat dec or statement of truth or conveyancer's certificate) lodged covers our requirements.

Flower4156

Dear Land Registry Representative,
We are VERY impressed by your help in this matter at a very difficult and stressful time for our family.
Many-many thanks once again.

Land_Registry

Hopefully there is now some light at the end of this particular tunnel for you and whilst your circumstances are rare they do highlight a number of general (and hopefully useful) points.

I've added the following simply to make some general points as the thread has received a number of views and it may prove helpful to others in the future.

When you have registered joint owners of land/property, i.e. the owners at law, they may not be the same persons as the equitable owners (that is, the persons entitled to the benefit of the land/property). And on their deaths these equitable interest(s) may not pass in the same way as the legal ownership does.

We only register legal estates. The proprietor is registered as the owner of the legal estate. The register does not guarantee that the proprietor is the beneficial owner i.e. they own the land/property for their own benefit.

Often the details of the beneficial ownership/equitable interests are not known to us as whilst we may register a restriction, normally a form A restriction as referred to when tenants in common is being discussed and/or the joint tenancy is being severed, the devil is then in the detail for both the legal and beneficial owners and this can become an issue when joint owners die as the register has to be viewed along with any other details such as wills, probates, trust deeds etc

The severance normally impacts on the ability of the sole surviving registered owner to sell/mortgage the land/property i.e. they cannot take receipt of any monies involved so have to act with someone else to protect the beneficial interest(s) as mentioned.

In this case however both registered owners have sadly died so the restriction and tenants in common aspect the OP referred to originally, should not impact on the sale. It does however impact on the rather unusual circumstance, notably the noted lease and the OP's attempt to merge it back into the freehold title, a pre-requisite in this case to completing the sale.

That noted lease in effect created a further legal estate, a leasehold one, and whilst not capable of being registered in it's own right at the time it was granted it then creates not only another legal estate but a beneficial one as well.

The possibility that the registered owners of the freehold and leasehold estates might for example have intended them to be left to different beneficiaries, is then created.

The other key general point to make is that once a form A restriction has been registered we then have no knowledge of what happens next, namely how the beneficial ownership might change as wills may be re-written, one owner dies and leaves their share to the surviving owner and so on.

This means that if we are then to register a change in the legal ownership where there is evidence (the form A restriction) that the beneficial ownership might be different then this has to be accounted for often by way of a stat dec/statement of truth of the facts around what has happened and how the person(s) now wanting to deal with the legal estate are entitled to do so.

That is also true when merging a leasehold interest back into it's freehold as in this case, and as the freehold and leasehold ownership are separate estates, we need to be sure that they are still held by the same legal owners and that their beneficial ownership are also held in the same way. If we can be sure that the legal and beneficial estates for both the freehold and leasehold match then we can merge the lease and cancel it.

The details needed to cover all of this are of course only known to the parties involved or their solicitor/conveyancer so it is important that owners and anyone with a beneficial interest ensure that they are all aware of how and why a severance of the joint tenancy has taken place. That does not imply any criticism of the OP or the parents in this example as often such matters are kept fairly private.

If they are all aware then they are in a much better position to be able to demonstrate and declare the facts of a particular case and then enable us to make the required changes to the legal title as registered. In most cases the personal records and indeed wills will help complete the picture and enable them to make the necessary declaration.

In this example the tenancy was severed by the registered owners for a specific reason. Following their deaths that original reason no longer applied but that severance had a much wider impact than may have been appreciated at the time simply because the noted lease remained in existence. The ideal scenario would have been for the father/mother to have merged the lease back into the freehold whilst still alive but they may have had some reason for not doing so of course.

Flower4156

Thanks again for a very clear response .