Nightmare!! Titles for garden not transferred to our name when we bought property

Kate1975

We are in the process of selling our house. We were told 6 weeks ago that when we bought our house in 2003 which was built in 1998 there was 2 sets of titles for the property. One set of titles was for the house and part of the garden and the other set of titles was for a further section of the garden. When we bought the house the solicitor for the sellers only sent one set of titles to our solicitor by mistake (apparently) our solicitor clearly didn't check the titles sent and the original conveyance report / deeds from the builders as he would have noticed the error. However, we have just been told that a large section of our garden is still registered in the previous owners name. This would be fairly easy to sort out if they would cooperate and sign over the land but they are not cooperating and not acknowledging any correspondence- we have their correct address. Their original solicitors firm is trying to sort out the problem they caused but currently we have had no joy and we are now at high risk of loosing our sale and new home. We are so upset as this was the solicitors fault but means we are in an impossible situation which makes our home unsellable unless this can be sorted. Any advice very welcome please. Thank you

xylophone

Sue for professional negligence?

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/protocol/prot_neg

davidmcn

Did your contract say that this additional land was included in your purchase? i.e. do you have something which could actually be enforced against your sellers?

Thrugelmir

Kate1975 wrote: »

our solicitor clearly didn't check the titles sent and the original conveyance report / deeds from the builders as he would have noticed the error.

How did the solicitor know precisely what you were buying?

Did you read the paperwork properly at the time?

G_M

Are you selling to Wilsden5 by any chance?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/67481462#Comment_67481462

Richard_Webster

Did your solicitor send you before exchange of contracts a copy plan from the title he had been sent asking you to check this was accurate? If he did then it's your fault for not checking it.

If he didn't then you may have a case against him.

Scenario can happen like this: (I have known a similar case).

Mr A buys property with small garden and gets a mortgage on it. A few years later he buys extra piece of garden for cash. Therefore they have two separate titles. When he sells his solicitors asks for details of his mortgage and gets deeds for original area from lender. Seller doesn't think to tell solicitor he bought an extra piece of land. Sale goes through to Mr B whose solicitors don't bother to check the extent of the land with their client who thinks he is getting extra area of garden.

Mr B sells a few years later to Mr C and again nobody looks at the plans and the seller and buyer assume that the extra area is included.

I was acting for Mr C and as I knew the area I asked him about the extra piece of land and the whole mess emerged. We applied for a possessory title of it and in that case the Land Registry were actually able to find Mr A and he conceded that he intended to sell the extra area - that was enough to give us an absolute title - but you may not be so lucky.

The moral is that you should always check the plans. I knew the solicitor who had acted for Mr C when he bought and he was very embarrassed when I told him what happened.

Land_Registry

As Richard Webster's post proves the devil is in the detail. Who is to 'blame' is one thing but rectifying any mistake is another.

There are often two choices, either the registered owner(s) (your original sellers) now transfer the title to you go the adverse possession/possessory title route.

The fact that you have been able to trace the orig sellers 12 years on and their solicitors are involved should be a positive in most cases. Often that is not what happens so trying to resolve it with them is impossible as they have either moved away and cannot be traced for example.

The sellers are needed in this scenario as the land/title needs to be legally transferred so they would need to execute a fresh Transfer.

davidmcn is right to point to the contract and what 'legal obligations' the orig sellers were under. If those obligations were not fulfilled then there may be a case to answer and that is your leverage for their cooperation and action but as you already appreciate that leverage sometimes has to be applied quite firmly. The same applies of course to their solicitors and your own as appropriate.

If your solicitor is trying to resolve it with their solicitor then the leverage may not have been applied too strongly as yet and they simply think 'it all happened 12 years ago so no longer our problem'. Worth asking your own solicitor to confirm as you also need to cover off the other possibility re adverse possession so it is often best to rely on your own solicitor here.

DAKOTA45

Hi Richard Webster & LRR

We had a problem in that our vendor who owned a substantial amount of land surrounding our house, sold us a house and garden, telling us that the septic tank was on our land.

A few months after moving in, we discovered that the tank was just outside the boundary fence.

The vendor agreed he would transfer the extra land containing the tank as soon as he returned from a trip abroad, Unfortunately, he met with a fatal accident before the land was legally transferred and although his estate was sold on, we continued in occupation of the extra land for 10 years and then applied for Adverse Possession.

However, the new landowner (who never entered or used the land in all the time I was in occupation) objected and it went to court. It's a long & complicated story, but I now owe the new landowner substantial legal costs as I lost my case because of an unfair trial.

Still fighting 4 years on...

Just awful!

stator

Is the house really unsellable even without the extra garden?

charlotte4940

Oh no how awful!

im in the process of buying a property that has a garden with a different title. ill be sure to double check the plans!! Our problem is that the land nor the house are currently registered but hoping all can be resolved by our solicitor.