Land Registry questions

G_M

stickysituation wrote: »

Hi land Registry

Currently purchasing a property which we have today found out is unregistered and the deeds are lost the current owners (brothers who both live there) inherited the house from their mother they have lived there for 40plus years and have now taken an indemnity insurance out to cover in case someone came out of the woodwork laying claim to the property which they are confident there won’t be .
I’m aware this is going to throw massive issues as they will have to prove ownership sending any evidence they have they have been informed this will take in excess of 6 months does this sound about right? Can things go wrong here or is it just simply a lengthy process
We are unsure whether to ride it out as they have offered to rent us the property whilst it is all cleared up or just pull out altogether

see


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5914210/purchasing-a-house-with-lost-deeds-and-unregistered

Charfdh93

@land registry - apologies I didn’t realise I had written grandmother and nan. I can confirm the home was owned by my Nan and grandad and no other people involved.
Since sending my initial question, I believe we have confirmation she never completed probate when my grandad died so technically the house had remained registered to him and her this whole time on the deeds and your registry but we haven’t checked yet and are waiting on the solicitors.
My mother and uncle inherited her estate in May when she passed away and now the grant of probate has arrived, they are selling the house.
Our solicitors confirmed they were sending the TR1 yesterday but, this morning they queried whether my Nan ever claimed probate when my grandad died. So the TR1 potentially hasn’t been sent.
We’ve provided a copy of his will and death certificate and are currently waiting to see what they can or cannot do.
As far as we are aware, the house is registered in both of their names but it is now my mother and uncle selling to a third party.
So my main concern and what I’m hoping you can just provide advice on is, what do we need to go or evidence to enable us to either transfer the house solely into my nans name or my uncles as he and my mother have been granted probate (before we sell to the third party)

Many Thanks in advance

stickysituation

Thanks I only realised there was an actual land Registry post just now hence the duplicate post

Land_Registry

stickysituation wrote: »

Hi land Registry

Currently purchasing a property which we have today found out is unregistered and the deeds are lost the current owners (brothers who both live there) inherited the house from their mother they have lived there for 40plus years and have now taken an indemnity insurance out to cover in case someone came out of the woodwork laying claim to the property which they are confident there won’t be .
I’m aware this is going to throw massive issues as they will have to prove ownership sending any evidence they have they have been informed this will take in excess of 6 months does this sound about right? Can things go wrong here or is it just simply a lengthy process
We are unsure whether to ride it out as they have offered to rent us the property whilst it is all cleared up or just pull out altogether

Useful to link to other thread as well for more detail especially re some of your replies to the comments if others. The following may also assist.

If the property is unregistered and the deeds lost then our PG2 explains what we would need to register

Inheritance does not in itself transfer the legal ownership and if for example their evidence is as described and they inherited from their Mother they would need letters of Administration (no recorded will) or probate (recorded will) to support their legal right to now sell.

As others posted I'm unsure where indemnity insurance would play a part in that regard. Your legal advice should assist there though.

As a combined effort re probate/letters if admin; assembling the facts needed to support their claim; and ultimately the registration process /wait time then 6 months may be a reasonable estimate.

From our perspective it's the PG2 you/they would refer to and such cases whilst becoming rarer can and do occur especially where properties have remained in the family through the generations.

Renting would also mean being satisfied that the person(s) renting it out were the legal owner also so I'm not too sure how that changes things for you other than rent is a cheaper outlay than a purchase price of course. The risk is still the same although it's value differs

Land_Registry

Charfdh93 wrote: »

@land registry - apologies I didn’t realise I had written grandmother and nan. I can confirm the home was owned by my Nan and grandad and no other people involved.
Since sending my initial question, I believe we have confirmation she never completed probate when my grandad died so technically the house had remained registered to him and her this whole time on the deeds and your registry but we haven’t checked yet and are waiting on the solicitors.
My mother and uncle inherited her estate in May when she passed away and now the grant of probate has arrived, they are selling the house.
Our solicitors confirmed they were sending the TR1 yesterday but, this morning they queried whether my Nan ever claimed probate when my grandad died. So the TR1 potentially hasn’t been sent.
We’ve provided a copy of his will and death certificate and are currently waiting to see what they can or cannot do.
As far as we are aware, the house is registered in both of their names but it is now my mother and uncle selling to a third party.
So my main concern and what I’m hoping you can just provide advice on is, what do we need to go or evidence to enable us to either transfer the house solely into my nans name or my uncles as he and my mother have been granted probate (before we sell to the third party)

Many Thanks in advance

Noted and I guessed that might be the case although we often use different names for each set if grandparents hence my uncertainty.

If the property is registered in the joint names of Nan and Grandad then when Grandad died probate should not have been required re the property as the legal ownership passed to Nan as the surviving joint owner. Grandad's death effectively made Nan the sole legal owner although they never updated the register. It isn't transferred to Nan in such cases but the register updated to remove Grandad's name.

On the death of your Nan probate is then required as she is in effect the sole legal owner. Whoever has obtained probate for her should now be able to deal with her estate, which includes the property.

That means the executor could transfer it to the beneficiaries or sell it, those being the two most common scenarios. To do either they normally need Grandad's death certificate and Nan's probate. Together they confirm both deaths, the dates involved and thus how the legal ownership can now be dealt with and by whom.

Land_Registry

laskoibence wrote: »

@landregistry

Good Afternoon, thanks for the update.
What does it mean for us? Will the restriction removed soon, so we can do the exchange?

Laskoibence - it means that the solicitors acting will need to address the points we have raised before the case can proceed, so we will be reliant on them at this stage.

Land_Registry

bigstevex wrote: »

No problem, thought it was too good to be true

Apparently their conveyancer has now said they don’t know how to resolve it.

Looks like when a transfer occurred in the past (one big plot broken up and 2 other smaller plots combined into ours in the early 1990s when the estate was built), the hand drawn outlines dont correlate onto the land registry os layout causing the strange overlaps and ‘unregistered’ bits as per original picture.

Does this sound like something that should really be causing so much trouble that’s impossible to sort?

If there is unregistered land, that may take more work and time to resolve than any overlaps, but it's really something to discuss further with your solicitor.

bigstevex

Land_Registry wrote: »

If there is unregistered land, that may take more work and time to resolve than any overlaps, but it's really something to discuss further with your solicitor.

That’s just it though, they are all registered but because they were done by hand, the shapes don’t match up.

Land_Registry

bigstevex wrote: »

That’s just it though, they are all registered but because they were done by hand, the shapes don’t match up.

Appreciate what you've said about the difficulties this is causing for the solicitors acting, but we wouldn't be able assist any further until we have an application before us & even then it might take time for us to consider fully.

Runningamuk

Hi Land Registry
I recently bought a freehold for a converted house containing 2 flats, one of which i live in and one of which is leasehold. Details with the land registry confirmed that the leasehold for the flat i do not own was approx 65 years, so the value of this was part of my buying decision. I have subsequently discovered talking to the owner of the flat that the lease was extended by 99 years, over 10 years ago, prior to the purchase by the previous occupiers of my flat, but was clearly not registered with the Land Registry.

What is the status of that lease extension, as if it is valid i have a lost a considerable amount of equity in my purchase, and would not have continued with it without renegotiation with my vendor?