Land Registry questions

Land_Registry

RP12345 wrote: »

Hi,

I was wondering if you could tell me of any avenues i can go down to finding out who built my house.

Thanks

The registered details can, in some cases, help in much the same way as trying to identify the age of a building. Our blog article deals with the latter but some of the possible lines of enquiries can also be used to try and identify the builder also.

bigstevex

Not wanting to tread on toes with advice, but for our house it was a simple case of getting the £3 title details from land registry search, it listed information about the sale of the land to the housing developer in the 90s

bigstevex

Good Evening Land Registry, we had this issue outstanding from our purchase however we'd like to know where we stand with correcting part of it now, there's indemnity insurance covering a lack of the restrictive covenants because there's no information available from the land registry with regards to the transfer in the 1990s.

From the picture below I'll try to explain what we want to do and what we don't understand/no one can explain to us. I have all the title deed numbers and plan numbers for the original plots of land that were broken up etc too if required.

In the picture below you can see 2 blue areas, the blue area at the bottom is detailed in the docs we have and discusses that we can't build on it because it's a shared driveway and there are full details in all the transfer docs/deeds we have, the blue to the left also says we can't build on it but gives no reason and also there's no transfer information or details of the restrictive covenants if any.
What's baffling us is how this blue bit is there, the restriction in our title plan has no basis or detail in the deeds we have. We had to proceed on the sale based on indemnity insurance for all this plus the driveway had some issues otherwise the chain was going to collapse.

Our issue now however is that we want to build on land to the left coloured blue; the odd thing is, the house is already built on the land and has been since it was built following the transfer back in the 1990s as you can see with the dotted overlap, how can a restriction be there if the house was built on it too with the full permission of the original land owner (have all the docs to say so). FYI, the land to the left and surrounding all the back garden is a farmers fields if this makes a difference. We told our solicitor when we bought the house we wanted to build on this blue bit in future however on the day before exchange/completion he gives us his property report and stated we can't build on it but gives us no explanation why; he just stated it's because the transfer detail is missing.

So the simple question is, how can the land be restricted on the land registry plans when there's no detail as to where it came from/why it's blue. We believe it's been put there in error or the fact the path is blue too is providing conflicting restrictions (land the house is built on comes from 3 title plans).

Thoughts/ideas on how to proceed, how do we get the land registry to look at the data/detail we've got and remove the blue bit or explain where it's come from? Is it possible to go into a land registry office and chat to them with all the docs/detail we have?

Image link
https://ibb.co/G2gL8Qm

Land_Registry

bigstevex wrote: »

Not wanting to tread on toes with advice, but for our house it was a simple case of getting the £3 title details from land registry search, it listed information about the sale of the land to the housing developer in the 90s

No toes trodden as every registered title can be different. The key is that we register land rather than what is built on it. If it's a 'new' property as in built in the last 40/50 years the register may offer a clue or be definitive as it refers to the first plot sale. But as we know many houses are a lot older so the register may be less definitive

Land_Registry

bigstevex wrote: »

Good Evening Land Registry, we had this issue outstanding from our purchase however we'd like to know where we stand with correcting part of it now, there's indemnity insurance covering a lack of the restrictive covenants because there's no information available from the land registry with regards to the transfer in the 1990s.

From the picture below I'll try to explain what we want to do and what we don't understand/no one can explain to us. I have all the title deed numbers and plan numbers for the original plots of land.....if required

Can you quote the title numbers please as without them it's purely guesswork as it's the wording on the register itself that will offer a better understanding

I should stress that covenants will rarely offer a 'reason' for their being imposed. Understanding why they were imposed can of course help understand the level of risk involved in breaching them but that's not usually as relevant as knowing which land, and therefore which landiwner(s) now have the benefit. Their reason(s) for imposing them may be quite different.

The answer I think lies in your post that the title is made up of land from three separate titles and doubtless each were registered based on a separate set of circumstances. And the problem blue bit refers to covenants but offers no detail as to the covenanting clause/origins as the full details were not provided when it was first registered.

Let's see though

bigstevex

Land_Registry wrote: »

Can you quote the title numbers please as without them it's purely guesswork as it's the wording on the register itself that will offer a better understanding

I should stress that covenants will rarely offer a 'reason' for their being imposed. Understanding why they were imposed can of course help understand the level of risk involved in breaching them but that's not usually as relevant as knowing which land, and therefore which landiwner(s) now have the benefit. Their reason(s) for imposing them may be quite different.

The answer I think lies in your post that the title is made up of land from three separate titles and doubtless each were registered based on a separate set of circumstances. And the problem blue bit refers to covenants but offers no detail as to the covenanting clause/origins as the full details were not provided when it was first registered.

Let's see though

Afternoon, so the plan references are as follows..
Current plan is LA898100
LA619346 is the plan where the land tinted blue has come from by means of LA660095 (It's the details of this which are missing/none existent however you can see in the title plan (LA619346) that the path is on there as a hatched area and the land to the side of the property has no hatching or colour difference which is where I think the mistake has come from when these have been tied together into LA898100.

There's also a map within LA898100 deeds which shows the land being released from mortgage company in 1985 with details of a right of way (This right of way does exist but not across our property, it's a path to the opposite side of our neighbours house; neighbours to the right of us on the first post I sent.

We've got statements of truth from previous owners (15 years) stating that there have never been any issues raised with regards to the land by anyone.

There's also another small image within all the docs (included link below of picture) which again shows what I feel is what the blue/green colouring refers to (and makes total sense because of the shared driveway situation).

https://ibb.co/2qVtF6F

Thanks for taking the time to look through these, I've got about 30 sheets of paper with all this on

Land_Registry

bigstevex wrote: »

Afternoon, so the plan references are as follows..
Current plan is LA898100
LA619346 is the plan where the land tinted blue has come from by means of LA660095 (It's the details of this which are missing/none existent however you can see in the title plan (LA619346) that the path is on there as a hatched area and the land to the side of the property has no hatching or colour difference which is where I think the mistake has come from when these have been tied together into LA898100.

There's also a map within LA898100 deeds which shows the land being released from mortgage company in 1985 with details of a right of way (This right of way does exist but not across our property, it's a path to the opposite side of our neighbours house; neighbours to the right of us on the first post I sent.

We've got statements of truth from previous owners (15 years) stating that there have never been any issues raised with regards to the land by anyone.

There's also another small image within all the docs (included link below of picture) which again shows what I feel is what the blue/green colouring refers to (and makes total sense because of the shared driveway situation).

https://ibb.co/2qVtF6F

Thanks for taking the time to look through these, I've got about 30 sheets of paper with all this on

Many thanks - first question though is where are the covenants you referred to?
Title LA898100 does not refer to any covenants or restrictions on building on the title and I can't see the relevance of the 1990 Transfer other than with regards the use of the shared drive

The two parcels of land tinted blue were transferred out of title LA619346 and added to LA898100 hence the tinting blue and specific entries referring thereto but those entries do not refer to covenants or restrictions on being able to build although obviously you can't on the southernmost parcel of blue as it's a share drive.

So from your original post you state 'the blue to the left also says we can't build on it but gives no reason and also there's no transfer information or details of the restrictive covenants if any.' - so where does it say you can't build on it?

bigstevex

Land_Registry wrote: »

Many thanks - first question though is where are the covenants you referred to?
Title LA898100 does not refer to any covenants or restrictions on building on the title and I can't see the relevance of the 1990 Transfer other than with regards the use of the shared drive

The two parcels of land tinted blue were transferred out of title LA619346 and added to LA898100 hence the tinting blue and specific entries referring thereto but those entries do not refer to covenants or restrictions on being able to build although obviously you can't on the southernmost parcel of blue as it's a share drive.

So from your original post you state 'the blue to the left also says we can't build on it but gives no reason and also there's no transfer information or details of the restrictive covenants if any.' - so where does it say you can't build on it?

In the Charges section of LA898100, number 2 states land is subject to rights granted by a deed (names inserted here).... etc etc Original Filed under LA619346 but then when you read into LA619346 it directs you to look at LA660095 (But this plan doesn't exist on land registry, it's only referred to in this document and we have indemnity insurance related to this because of the unknown covenants and missing title plan). It's around this basis our solicitor has said we can't build on it and made us sign that we wont but can't elaborate why we can't build on it, we end up in an infinite loop with this question because of the missing plan.
(FYI, there's a comment in the charges section of LA619346 - point 9 which refers to LA660095 but I'm not sure on what it's referring to.)

But additionally to this when you read the fourth schedule of the deeds for LA898100 (I assume you have access to the deeds), point number 4 of the fourth schedule states ' TO Leave open and unbuilt upon and at all times free from obstruction the land shown coloured blue on the plan.' But the picture attached to this deed is the one of the driveway coloured blue and not the land to side of the house. (as per https://ibb.co/2qVtF6F)

Hence, on the current title plan LA898100 this blue land (driveway) mentioned in the deeds is now hatched brown, but why is there blue land to the left of the house at all if there's nothing in any of the documents we have stating as you say, you can't find anything saying we can't build on it.


Fyi, I completely agree with you that there's nothing clear saying we can't build on it but as I say our solicitor has made us sign something and when I've read about building on land that has restrictions, they can make you demolish it, we definately don't want this to happen. We're not looking to build for another year or so hence plenty of time to clear the issue up but have to be careful in what we do so we don't invalidate the indemnity policy we have

silvercar

Land_Registry wrote: »

We do have a backlog of some types of work and the timescales can extend to months although 6 months is an extreme example although many conveyancers appear to quote that to cover the whole conveyancing process in my experience.

IF the application has been submitted and there is a linked transaction, such as a confirmed onward sale, or a particular hardship made worse by any delay then the conveyancer should contact us with evidence to confirm and a request to expedite their application.

If the evidence is sufficient and we can expedite it then it is usually considered within 2 weeks. Everything then depends on it being in order of course

Out of interest, is your backlog getting better or worse?

It seems to be getting longer, but that may be a false perception based on people's queries always being for problems rather than reporting when everything goes smoothly (and speedily).

Given that the press is reporting a slowdown in house purchases, I would have thought that LR would have a chance to reduce waits.

Just curious.

davemorton

A question please.
I am in the process of buying a leasehold house (DU12268). Length left on the lease is about 940 years.
It turns out that the sellers solicitor has lost the lease, and since the house has never changed hands since the late 60's, it is not registered electronically. The sellers solicitor is having to work with the freeholders legal team and reconstruct the lease. I have been inform that they have just submitted the first registration with HM Land Registry.
How long does this process usually take please, and once it is done, when I buy the house will I get absolute title, or possessory title?