Land Registry questions

da_rule

Mikes_Saving wrote: »

Hi,
I'm currently in limbo between my local council and the company they have sold my lease to.
My house was built in 1962, it's leasehold and until recently I paid £12 a year to my local council. Appx 5 years ago they sold the Lease to a company that I now make this payment to.
During this transaction, I exercised my right to purchase the Freehold and paid the new company to buy the Freehold and have it transferred into my name, but I am now locked in an ongoing battle to have this completed.
The problem appears to be that when the local Town Council was subsumed by the Borough Council c1972, documentation of showing Freehold ownership was 'mislaid/lost' and only the record of the establishment of a 'Header Lease' exists.
Because of this, the new company have found (they tell me) that they are unable to transfer the Freehold to me as they don't own it (it appears they thought they did) and they are unable to establish who does. They have spoken to the Council who state that they now have 'no interest' in the matter since they have sold there interest to the new company and have no record of the Freeholder themselves.
I have done searches via the Land Registry and via the Bona Vacantia Division who tell me they have record of the freehold transfer back to the Council in 1964 but not the related documentation. They state that unless there is record of the Freehold having been sold in the interim period (which seems unlikely given that the recent sale to the new company), the Freehold remains with the Council.
I have 2 questions:
How can I unlock this impasse? The two organisations I'm dealing with have a vested interest in ignoring me, which they have been very good at for for several years! I managed to persuade my home insurance company that this was a dispute under the terms of my insurance and they have agreed to release limited funds with which they appointed Solicitors who (in Sept '18) have written on my behalf to the Council and PSP, but with no response (beyond the situation outlined above) to date.
Secondly:
Given that the land is not registered, can I make an application to register it directly with the land registry? I have lived in the property for 22 years.

Any advice would be very welcome at this stage!

It is very difficult for a leaseholder to obtain adverse possession, as, by virtue of you having a lease of the property you have permission to be there and as such you are not trespassing.

Is this a house or flat?

If there is a headlease, then even if you acquire the freehold this will not extinguish that so you may need to buy the headlease too.

There are statutory provisions for dealing with absent/unknown feeeholders but you may want to take specific advice on this as it can involve applications to the tribunal and holding money either in trust or paying money into court etc.

SD55

I had a house repossessed a few years ago and want to find out what it was sold for.

There is no information online, not on Zoopla, Rightmove or the land registry. The last sale and price shown is when I bought it. Does anyone know why this would be.

At the time the mortgage company claimed all the equity went in arrears and their fees so I came out without a penny.Yet they never said what it was sold for and I have not been able to get any information from them.

Can anyone help?

Land_Registry

Grantlf420 wrote: »

Hi Land registry, sorry. I haven’t got the upto date title info but the last request made on the property was for a TP1 and that title number was VA1535F... not sure if that helps?

Thanks

The application that reference relates to was completed at the end of October

Land_Registry

SD55 wrote: »

I had a house repossessed a few years ago and want to find out what it was sold for.

There is no information online, not on Zoopla, Rightmove or the land registry. The last sale and price shown is when I bought it. Does anyone know why this would be.

At the time the mortgage company claimed all the equity went in arrears and their fees so I came out without a penny.Yet they never said what it was sold for and I have not been able to get any information from them.

Can anyone help?

Data can be excluded from the Price Paid data at times. I'd suggest querying it via our online contact form so we can check. We can also advise as to what details we have re the onward sale and how to get a copy of a document which refers to the sale price

Land_Registry

Emilybutt12 wrote: »

Thank you for your reply. Sorry my understanding was that as we were only transferring my BILs part it counted as 'part' rather than whole. I now follow you. So if he were to transfer it to me, it still remains as 'whole' transfer.

In terms of SDLT the current mortgage is just in my husbands name. But from what I've read if transferring property then as my BIL and my husband are tenants in common on the deeds, the mortgage is technically 50% his, so my husband is only gaining £97,500 (although it is currently solely in his name). I do realise that this is more geared towards lawyers/accountatns but with the Christmas period it is not the most conducive time of year for getting hold of them, so I'm trying to glean as much information as possible before then, to go in armed with a better understanding.

Thank you for your help.

HMRC have online guidance although I imagine you have checked that and remain uncertain

As G_M explains you are transferring the WHOLE of the legal ownership as its from 2 names to 1 of them. You can't transfer a share of the the legal ownership.
A TP1 is a Transfer of part - a physical part if the land/building so would nut be used here.

One Q arises from your posts though as you say the property is registered in their joint names but the mortgage is in just your husband's sole name. That should not be possible as you can't have two registered owners but only one of them charging the property (legal charge/mortgage).

Soft-kaleidoscope769

Hi,
I am buying my first property and could do with some advice regarding an issue I have come across.
The house i am buying used to be a leasehold, but the leasehold owner prior to the current owners bought the freehold but without merging them, and therefore owned the freehold and the leasehold to the property. I have read online that this is fairly common so no issues there.
However, our solicitors noticed that the small outbuilding in the back yard is highlighted on the plans for the leasehold, but not the plans for the freehold. This is most likely just a mistake from when the freehold was purchased, but never the less needs to be rectified for continuity between the two documents.
We have asked the sellers to sort this out with the HM land registry at their cost prior to the move in date. They agreed to this, and began applying through HM land registry, however today I received an email from the seller saying they have been told the process of rectifying this issue will take approximately 2 months, and to keep things moving, they have offered us £200 in cash to stick to the move in date, as this should cover the cost of us sorting the issue out ourselves after the move.
So my question is, has anyone had a similar issue before and Is £200 enough to cover the cost of rectifying the title plan? Are there any problems that could arise if we go ahead with the purchase and try to sort this issue out ourselves?

Thanks for any help!
Joe

Land_Registry

Jmoran wrote: »

Hi,
I am buying my first property and could do with some advice regarding an issue I have come across.
The house i am buying used to be a leasehold, but the leasehold owner prior to the current owners bought the freehold but without merging them, and therefore owned the freehold and the leasehold to the property. I have read online that this is fairly common so no issues there.
However, our solicitors noticed that the small outbuilding in the back yard is highlighted on the plans for the leasehold, but not the plans for the freehold. This is most likely just a mistake from when the freehold was purchased, but never the less needs to be rectified for continuity between the two documents.
We have asked the sellers to sort this out with the HM land registry at their cost prior to the move in date. They agreed to this, and began applying through HM land registry, however today I received an email from the seller saying they have been told the process of rectifying this issue will take approximately 2 months, and to keep things moving, they have offered us £200 in cash to stick to the move in date, as this should cover the cost of us sorting the issue out ourselves after the move.
So my question is, has anyone had a similar issue before and Is £200 enough to cover the cost of rectifying the title plan? Are there any problems that could arise if we go ahead with the purchase and try to sort this issue out ourselves?

Thanks for any help!
Joe

It's going to be very difficult to offer any advice without more details on what you mean by 'the small outbuilding in the back yard is highlighted on the plans for the leasehold, but not the plans for the freehold'

Do you mean that the Leasehold title includes more land/buildings than the freehold? Or is there a reference on the Leasehold title plan, which you refer to as highlighted? Or something else?
And what evidence is being provided to support any application to rectify the situation? Are they claiming freehold ownership of the extra bit? Or are they saying the freehold was registered incorrectly?

Trying to sort things out after you have purchased is I suspect fine if you have the required details/evidence to rectify the issue. Only your conveyancer will be able to advise you on that and your situation will be unique to you and your seller/the property. Others may have had similar issues but without the exact details it will just be a shared experience that may or may not apply and/or help.

If they have applied already then the 'delay' is the wait time between receipt and consideration. If you are a confirmed buyer then I'd suggest asking them to contact us with evidence of the confirmed purchase and a request to expedite their application.

If their application is in order and the evidence is acceptable then you'd know that much sooner than 2 months but much depends on what the application is for and what evidence is provided. I suspect they have simply applied saying the two titles don't match and it must have been registered wrong. Whilst that's possible it's rarely the case and there 'more' is needed. So I'd go the expedite request route to find that out first but as mentioned that's for your cinveyancer to advise on based in what's been shared/confirmed to date

G_M

Jmoran wrote: »

Hi,
....
The house i am buying used to be a leasehold, but the leasehold owner prior to the current owners bought the freehold but without merging them.....


However, our solicitors noticed that the small outbuilding in the back yard is highlighted on the plans for the leasehold, but not the plans for the freehold.

Do you mean:

1) the area of land enclosed by the red line showing what is included in the Title is smaller in the Freehold Title than in the Leasehold title?
or
2) the areas are the same, but the Freehold title does not show the outbuilding?

In other works, is the land on which the outbuilding sits included in the Freehold title?


Duplicate thread:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5943866/discrepancy-between-freehold-and-leasehold-plans

tomyeah

Hi Land Registry!

I have a query regarding an issue that is holding our house purchase up.

Our sellers are buying a property which has been registered incorrectly - it's showing as being registered to the council (it's an ex-council property) as opposed to the current owner. They contacted the council initially to query this and they took 3 months to reply to say it needed to be taken up with the Land Registry.

The solicitor's representing the sale of our sellers purchase got back requesting our sellers proceed with a verbal confirmation from the Land Registry and that they would deal with the error when we they submit their application, however, as the Land Registry are not prepared to confirm this is OK in writing, our sellers are not happy to proceed.

I believe they are now looking to register the property to the current owners before we can exchange contracts (I think they've already done this perhaps a few days before the Christmas break). Do you know how long this process is currently taking? I believe they have already asked to expedite it if possible.

Let me know if you need me to clarify anything!

Land_Registry

tomyeah wrote: »

Hi Land Registry!

I have a query regarding an issue that is holding our house purchase up.

Our sellers are buying a property which has been registered incorrectly - it's showing as being registered to the council (it's an ex-council property) as opposed to the current owner. They contacted the council initially to query this and they took 3 months to reply to say it needed to be taken up with the Land Registry.

The solicitor's representing the sale of our sellers purchase got back requesting our sellers proceed with a verbal confirmation from the Land Registry and that they would deal with the error when we they submit their application, however, as the Land Registry are not prepared to confirm this is OK in writing, our sellers are not happy to proceed.

I believe they are now looking to register the property to the current owners before we can exchange contracts (I think they've already done this perhaps a few days before the Christmas break). Do you know how long this process is currently taking? I believe they have already asked to expedite it if possible.

Let me know if you need me to clarify anything!

That all depends on what has been submitted and what is being rectified. If they have applied to register a Transfer of an already registered title from the Council to your seller then that should not take too long and should not need expediting.

Of it is something more complex and expedition is approved then it should be considered within 10 working days of it's expedition. Everything then depends on it's being on order.

You'll need to confirm the exact details with your solicitor/the seller to understand possible timeframes as nothing you have posted here is specific enough to provide anything other than a general response. They should have that level of detail though and be able to share it.