Deeds not transferred on leasehold garage, owner missing!

dizzybee001

Hi and thank you for taking the time to reply, I really appreciate it.
When I checked the (very feint) plan I thought the garage was part of it. Looking at the correspondence now my solicitor did make enquiries about the garage but it wasn't followed up. No excuse but I was a single mum moving by myself to a new area and with trying to get the kids into new schools and dealing with a very demanding buyer and packing up my house I left it in the hands of the solicitor. I just assumed it was all sorted; that was my naivety and lesson learned.

I'm hoping that my solicitor can find a solution quickly but I know that the probability is that I won't be able to buy the property that I want as there will be too long a delay in sorting this out. I am so cross this this wasn't discovered by my solicitor, as there is no financial loss I don't think there's any point in taking action but I don't see why I should suffer at the hands of two careless solicitors (my sellers solicitors didn't do the searches properly when she bought the property either). I've looked at the paperwork my solicitor sent me after I moved and if contains details of the lease.

Would now be good time to find out if the coachhouse is insured properly by the landlord of the flat? I'm not sure how I'd go about this as the flat is rented out by a management company. Also I'm not clear who is the landlord, on the draft lease I've discovered it's the house builder, but would they have transferred to the person who bought the flat?

Thanks again for your help and I'll keep you posted.

Land_Registry

dizzybee - fortunately this type of thing is a very rare occurence but can happen. We can't help re the insurance aspect I'm afraid

dizzybee001

Land_Registry_representative wrote: »

dizzybee - fortunately this type of thing is a very rare occurence but can happen. We can't help re the insurance aspect but if you want to email us at [EMAIL="customer.service@landregistry.co.uk"]customer.service@landregistry.co.uk[/EMAIL] with the specific details re title(s) and address we can at least try to help unravel the FH/LH scenario for you

I'll edit out the email details once email received or you post otherwise

Hi, that's great thank you. I will try and email later.

kirtondm

I also had solicitor problems - Although It was 2/12 to sort from when I knew my solicitors knew at the start of the process 4/12 previous and I lost one buyer whilst still not being made aware.


They were desperately trying to track down the previous owners for 2/12 before I found out from my estate agent via my buyers solicitor what the problem was.


The problem was although I had agreed and signed off the garage on the the plans the original solicitor amended the paperwork and stuck the garage off whilst registrating the property.


As you can imagine I was pretty annoyed at the time

dizzybee001

kirtondm wrote: »

I also had solicitor problems - Although It was 2/12 to sort from when I knew my solicitors knew at the start of the process 4/12 previous and I lost one buyer whilst still not being made aware.


They were desperately trying to track down the previous owners for 2/12 before I found out from my estate agent via my buyers solicitor what the problem was.


The problem was although I had agreed and signed off the garage on the the plans the original solicitor amended the paperwork and stuck the garage off whilst registrating the property.


As you can imagine I was pretty annoyed at the time

I am sure we will lose the buyer, although we are at the start of the process so fingers crossed.


Question - do I get a new solicitor for the sale of my property whilst getting my old solicitor to sort out their mess, or do I instruct the old ones as they have all the details? Would that be a conflict?


Thanks

rtho782

A friend of mine had this happen on a house he purchased, with a garage that was on separate deeds (although not under a coach house and both freehold).

He was a first time buyer and happy to wait, but the vendor had to contact the people he bought from, had a similar issue in that they had broken up, and had to pay for tracing people to find the woman.

It delayed the purchase by about 6 months, but it did get worked out. I don't know if the vendors had to pay the costs to trace or if they got their original solicitors to pay for it.

Worst case scenario, you could apply for adverse possession in a couple of years, or the equivalent for registered land. As the land registry won't be able to contact the current "owner" they won't be able to object so even if registered land, this should go through.

dizzybee001

rtho782 wrote: »

A friend of mine had this happen on a house he purchased, with a garage that was on separate deeds (although not under a coach house and both freehold).

He was a first time buyer and happy to wait, but the vendor had to contact the people he bought from, had a similar issue in that they had broken up, and had to pay for tracing people to find the woman.

It delayed the purchase by about 6 months, but it did get worked out. I don't know if the vendors had to pay the costs to trace or if they got their original solicitors to pay for it.

Worst case scenario, you could apply for adverse possession in a couple of years, or the equivalent for registered land. As the land registry won't be able to contact the current "owner" they won't be able to object so even if registered land, this should go through.

Hi, thank you for your answer, that's really useful.
I don't think they'll wait six months, we have a couple of issues, they want to move in in June, also we are buying new build and they will be pushing for a quick exchange. Will we be able to exchange with this in progress?
One of the old owners is happy to sign, the other, even if found, will probably not sign unless forced, so that will hold things up.
We are making an application that, as there is a covenant in the house deeds that it cannot be sold without transferring the garage, there was every intention to sell both. I am hoping that with one signature and that in place it might sway things for us.

rtho782

dizzybee001 wrote: »

Hi, thank you for your answer, that's really useful.
I don't think they'll wait six months, we have a couple of issues, they want to move in in June, also we are buying new build and they will be pushing for a quick exchange. Will we be able to exchange with this in progress?
One of the old owners is happy to sign, the other, even if found, will probably not sign unless forced, so that will hold things up.
We are making an application that, as there is a covenant in the house deeds that it cannot be sold without transferring the garage, there was every intention to sell both. I am hoping that with one signature and that in place it might sway things for us.

Yeah, sounds like the covenant alone should be enough, fingers crossed for you!!

GDB2222

dizzybee001 wrote: »

I am sure we will lose the buyer, although we are at the start of the process so fingers crossed.


Question - do I get a new solicitor for the sale of my property whilst getting my old solicitor to sort out their mess, or do I instruct the old ones as they have all the details? Would that be a conflict?


Thanks

I don't see a conflict. As long as you are satisfied that they are doing their best to sort it out, I'd say to stay with them. I'm not even sure that it's their responsibility in the first place, so I'd do all I can to keep them on your side.

dizzybee001

rtho782 wrote: »

A friend of mine had this happen on a house he purchased, with a garage that was on separate deeds (although not under a coach house and both freehold).

He was a first time buyer and happy to wait, but the vendor had to contact the people he bought from, had a similar issue in that they had broken up, and had to pay for tracing people to find the woman.

It delayed the purchase by about 6 months, but it did get worked out. I don't know if the vendors had to pay the costs to trace or if they got their original solicitors to pay for it.

Worst case scenario, you could apply for adverse possession in a couple of years, or the equivalent for registered land. As the land registry won't be able to contact the current "owner" they won't be able to object so even if registered land, this should go through.

rtho782 wrote: »

Yeah, sounds like the covenant alone should be enough, fingers crossed for you!!

Thank you, yes fingers crossed!!!