Land Registry questions

gazfocus

@Land_Registry Firstly, thank you so much for being on this forum and for offering the support/guidance that you do.

I am nearly at the completion stage of selling mine and my wifes house. At the beginning of the process, our solicitor notified me of 3 'charging orders' on our house and asked if it was our intention to pay them out of the proceeds of the sale, on completion. At the time, we thought they had to be paid so we said 'yes'.

Fast forward several weeks, and while we've been pushing our solicitor to get a completion date from the buyers solicitor, I have been reading more about the 'charging orders' and realised that as they are in my sole name where the house is jointly owned, they are indeed 'Form K Restrictions' and as such do not actually need to be paid upon the sale of the house - my justification to our solicitor is that I'd like the option to negotiate the settlements with the creditors, which I cannot do alongside the pressure of trying to get the house sold (it's taken nearly 6 weeks for my solicitor to even get redemption figures from one of the creditors). 

I have since gone back to my solicitor to say in essence that I don't wish for these restrictions to be paid out of the proceeds of sale, but she keeps coming back with statements such as "Your buyer’s solicitors require this to be removed on completion, in which we will require the certificate from the creditors." and "You would need to come to an agreement with the creditors. As I understand it, they will not provide the certificates to remove the restrictions until the charges are paid. We are required to undertake to your buyer’s solicitors that this will be done at completion."

My solicitor clearly lacks understanding about what the Form K restriction entails, and despite trying to explain it, and sending her the guidance from 'Practice Guide 76' on the land registry website together with snippets from other threads on here, she just isn't getting it.

We are not talking a vast amount of money here, in relation to the sale price of the property, but it's about £7,500 in total that she wants us to pay out of the proceeds. The house we are buying needs significant renovations so even if we managed to shave off £1,000 through negotiations with the creditors, that would be a help.

I was just wondering if there are any other tips I could try to encourage the solicitor to agree to not pay the restrictions?

Land_Registry

Exodi said:

Thanks LR for answering our questions! Just to give a short bit of background, my property is comprised of four titles:

One covers the left half of the property, one covers the right half of the property, one is a tiny one covering the porch and one covers the front driveway. From what I understand, this was because the house is much newer than the other properties on the street, and the house was built across land belonging to multiple different owners. 

To my question, do you see any issues amalgamating these titles into one single title (I've read that this could be rejected as it is not essential)? Is this something I could do myself with an AP1?

Obviously I don't want to pay £40 (this is moneysavingexpert after all) if there's a good chance it'll be rejected because it's not worth the hassle.

If there’s no ‘good reason’ then it will be rejected. We don’t keep the £40 fee in such cases 

Land_Registry

gazfocus said:

@Land_Registry Firstly, thank you so much for being on this forum and for offering the support/guidance that you do.

I am nearly at the completion stage of selling mine and my wifes house. At the beginning of the process, our solicitor notified me of 3 'charging orders' on our house and asked if it was our intention to pay them out of the proceeds of the sale, on completion. At the time, we thought they had to be paid so we said 'yes'.

Fast forward several weeks, and while we've been pushing our solicitor to get a completion date from the buyers solicitor, I have been reading more about the 'charging orders' and realised that as they are in my sole name where the house is jointly owned, they are indeed 'Form K Restrictions' and as such do not actually need to be paid upon the sale of the house - my justification to our solicitor is that I'd like the option to negotiate the settlements with the creditors, which I cannot do alongside the pressure of trying to get the house sold (it's taken nearly 6 weeks for my solicitor to even get redemption figures from one of the creditors). 

I have since gone back to my solicitor to say in essence that I don't wish for these restrictions to be paid out of the proceeds of sale, but she keeps coming back with statements such as "Your buyer’s solicitors require this to be removed on completion, in which we will require the certificate from the creditors." and "You would need to come to an agreement with the creditors. As I understand it, they will not provide the certificates to remove the restrictions until the charges are paid. We are required to undertake to your buyer’s solicitors that this will be done at completion."

My solicitor clearly lacks understanding about what the Form K restriction entails, and despite trying to explain it, and sending her the guidance from 'Practice Guide 76' on the land registry website together with snippets from other threads on here, she just isn't getting it.

We are not talking a vast amount of money here, in relation to the sale price of the property, but it's about £7,500 in total that she wants us to pay out of the proceeds. The house we are buying needs significant renovations so even if we managed to shave off £1,000 through negotiations with the creditors, that would be a help.

I was just wondering if there are any other tips I could try to encourage the solicitor to agree to not pay the restrictions?

Reads like you’ve covered it and our guidance in in PG 76 which you refer to 
Nd reading your own thread it looks like you are dealing with your solicitor as well 

gazfocus

Land_Registry said:

gazfocus said:

@Land_Registry Firstly, thank you so much for being on this forum and for offering the support/guidance that you do.

I am nearly at the completion stage of selling mine and my wifes house. At the beginning of the process, our solicitor notified me of 3 'charging orders' on our house and asked if it was our intention to pay them out of the proceeds of the sale, on completion. At the time, we thought they had to be paid so we said 'yes'.

Fast forward several weeks, and while we've been pushing our solicitor to get a completion date from the buyers solicitor, I have been reading more about the 'charging orders' and realised that as they are in my sole name where the house is jointly owned, they are indeed 'Form K Restrictions' and as such do not actually need to be paid upon the sale of the house - my justification to our solicitor is that I'd like the option to negotiate the settlements with the creditors, which I cannot do alongside the pressure of trying to get the house sold (it's taken nearly 6 weeks for my solicitor to even get redemption figures from one of the creditors). 

I have since gone back to my solicitor to say in essence that I don't wish for these restrictions to be paid out of the proceeds of sale, but she keeps coming back with statements such as "Your buyer’s solicitors require this to be removed on completion, in which we will require the certificate from the creditors." and "You would need to come to an agreement with the creditors. As I understand it, they will not provide the certificates to remove the restrictions until the charges are paid. We are required to undertake to your buyer’s solicitors that this will be done at completion."

My solicitor clearly lacks understanding about what the Form K restriction entails, and despite trying to explain it, and sending her the guidance from 'Practice Guide 76' on the land registry website together with snippets from other threads on here, she just isn't getting it.

We are not talking a vast amount of money here, in relation to the sale price of the property, but it's about £7,500 in total that she wants us to pay out of the proceeds. The house we are buying needs significant renovations so even if we managed to shave off £1,000 through negotiations with the creditors, that would be a help.

I was just wondering if there are any other tips I could try to encourage the solicitor to agree to not pay the restrictions?

Reads like you’ve covered it and our guidance in in PG 76 which you refer to 
Nd reading your own thread it looks like you are dealing with your solicitor as well 

I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall @Land_Registry. My solicitor has emailed back this morning to say she has heard back from the creditor to say they require full payment in order to remove the restriction...seems I'm getting nowhere with my clueless solicitor.

Land_Registry

gazfocus said:

Land_Registry said:

gazfocus said:

@Land_Registry Firstly, thank you so much for being on this forum and for offering the support/guidance that you do.

I am nearly at the completion stage of selling mine and my wifes house. At the beginning of the process, our solicitor notified me of 3 'charging orders' on our house and asked if it was our intention to pay them out of the proceeds of the sale, on completion. At the time, we thought they had to be paid so we said 'yes'.

Fast forward several weeks, and while we've been pushing our solicitor to get a completion date from the buyers solicitor, I have been reading more about the 'charging orders' and realised that as they are in my sole name where the house is jointly owned, they are indeed 'Form K Restrictions' and as such do not actually need to be paid upon the sale of the house - my justification to our solicitor is that I'd like the option to negotiate the settlements with the creditors, which I cannot do alongside the pressure of trying to get the house sold (it's taken nearly 6 weeks for my solicitor to even get redemption figures from one of the creditors). 

I have since gone back to my solicitor to say in essence that I don't wish for these restrictions to be paid out of the proceeds of sale, but she keeps coming back with statements such as "Your buyer’s solicitors require this to be removed on completion, in which we will require the certificate from the creditors." and "You would need to come to an agreement with the creditors. As I understand it, they will not provide the certificates to remove the restrictions until the charges are paid. We are required to undertake to your buyer’s solicitors that this will be done at completion."

My solicitor clearly lacks understanding about what the Form K restriction entails, and despite trying to explain it, and sending her the guidance from 'Practice Guide 76' on the land registry website together with snippets from other threads on here, she just isn't getting it.

We are not talking a vast amount of money here, in relation to the sale price of the property, but it's about £7,500 in total that she wants us to pay out of the proceeds. The house we are buying needs significant renovations so even if we managed to shave off £1,000 through negotiations with the creditors, that would be a help.

I was just wondering if there are any other tips I could try to encourage the solicitor to agree to not pay the restrictions?

Reads like you’ve covered it and our guidance in in PG 76 which you refer to 
Nd reading your own thread it looks like you are dealing with your solicitor as well 

I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall @Land_Registry. My solicitor has emailed back this morning to say she has heard back from the creditor to say they require full payment in order to remove the restriction...seems I'm getting nowhere with my clueless solicitor.

Form K restrictions are ‘different’ from most other restrictions. Other types often require cancellation/withdrawal so it’s possible that some conveyancers see ‘restriction’ and act accordingly 
However we have no confirmation that’s the case as we deal with what comes next, not the beforehand requirements 

Benc744

Hi Land Registry 

Are you able to shed any light on when we might get a response to an enquiry raised with LR please?  

Many thanks

Land_Registry

Benc744 said:

Hi Land Registry 

Are you able to shed any light on when we might get a response to an enquiry raised with LR please?  

Ref: 230515-2019005

Many thanks

We aim to respond to enquiries within 5 working days so you should hear from us early next week 

Lafamilia

Good morning Land registry, please could you confirm whether requisitions remain outstanding on SF324674 please? Sorry to keep asking but we have very little information coming through - that said there does seem to be some signs that things may be moving so if you could take a peek I would appreciate it.

Land_Registry

Lafamilia said:

Good morning Land registry, please could you confirm whether requisitions remain outstanding on SF324674 please? Sorry to keep asking but we have very little information coming through - that said there does seem to be some signs that things may be moving so if you could take a peek I would appreciate it.

Still issues outstanding and we’ve contacted the conveyancer again today 

Llihl13

Hi @Land_Registry not sure if this is the right place to ask but hoping you can shed some light as nobody else is able to!

I am almost due to exchange on my house but my buyers solicitor has today said we cannot exchange due to a “form L” B3 restriction our end that needs removing. Do you know what this is or how long it might take to remove? I am selling my 3 year old property that was bought from new 3 years ago. I’ve found the wording on the title:

RESTRICTION: No disposition of the registered estate (other than a charge) by the proprietor of the registered estate or by the proprietor of any registered charge, not being a charge registered before the entry of this restriction, is to be registered without a certificate signed by a conveyancer

thanks