Lease extension - seling - delay in Land Registry registering

PennyForThem_2

I am in the process of selling a flat I had previously rented out. The building/flats in building freehold is held and are managed by all the flat owners.

I realised as I was about to sell that the 99 year lease needed to be extended as it had reduced to 67 years by this year.

I have a buyer who wanted me to extend lease (reasonable IMO).

I paid solicitors the statutory fee to extend which they have done. (For those interested this is a fixed price by the relevant Act in the region of 650 ish sterling) to 999 years. This has been done in my name.

Now sale is imminent - mortgage offer to seller has been approved.

However I have been informed that The Land Registry is taking 3-4 months to register a change.

What do I do?

Hopefully Land Registry Representative will pick up on this post and advise?

Land_Registry

PennyForThem - we do have a backlog of this type of work sadly. So if you have a confirmed buyer your solicitor should contact us with those details and a request for expedition. If we can expedite it then we will and then it's all a case of it being in order

In some cases a buyer will still complete on the purchase if the extension has been submitted but that very much depends on the circumstances and the legal advice received

Littc

Interesting. I am in a similar position although Land Registry have said they will expedite the process. Once a decision is made to expedite how long will it normally take for the work to be complete?

Land_Registry

Littc - once expedition is approved we normally consider the application within 2 weeks. Providing it is not of a veyr high value and is a routine property/lease extension then it is all a case of whether it is in order and what additional work (if any) is required.
If it is in order and a survey is not required and notices need not be served, both unlikely in this scenario, then it can normally be completed.

AdrianC

PennyForThem wrote: »

I am in the process of selling a flat I had previously rented out. The building/flats in building freehold is held and are managed by all the flat owners.

I realised as I was about to sell that the 99 year lease needed to be extended as it had reduced to 67 years by this year.

I paid solicitors the statutory fee to extend which they have done. (For those interested this is a fixed price by the relevant Act in the region of 650 ish sterling) to 999 years. This has been done in my name.

If you went for a statutory extension, then it'll be 90 years on top of the previous remainder - so 157 years.
If you went for a non-statutory arrangement with the freeholder, then it may well be 999 years.

peterashford

On a similar theme, I purchased a property back in July 2016 and still haven't received the notification from solicitor about the purchase being registered at the land registry. Solicitor tells me very long back log at the Land Registry. Has been 7-8 months now. Is this correct in other people's experience? Is the backlog really that long?!

thanks Pete

Okrib

You can't extend to 999 years unless you've bought the freehold with your fellow leaseholders. If you've just extended the lease under a Section 42 notice then you'll add 90 years to your current lease. Can you confirm which of these you have done?

If your solicitor has confirmation of the paperwork being submitted to the Land Registry, and confirmation from the freeholder concerning the enfranchisement / lease extension then you should be able to exchange assuming all parties are sensible about it (solicitors representing mortgage companies would usually be the ones to delay things).

Hoploz

Okrib this is another old thread which has been resurrected by a new poster.

Would be interesting to see whether Pennyforthem could update on progress ie. how long land reg took and whether the sale was able to complete ok.

Peterashford is there a reason you need this confirmation?