Delays at Land Registry

lizzieb1410

Hi all,

I am writing on behalf of my partner - I understand most but will do my best to give you the full story!

My partner bought a house with his ex-partner some years ago. They have no mortgage on the house and all of the equity was hers. Therefore, even though his name is on the deed, he does not want/have any share of the equity (although at the moment legally he does).
We want to purchase a house now together ( I am a first time buyer) and if we do this with his name on the deeds of his ex's property then we will pay second residency stamp duty - something we don't want to do and can't really afford to do.
Therefore, he has applied to land registry to transfer the ownership solely into her name - basically, to take his name off of the deeds of the property. There is no mortgage on the property and he does not want any money from it - therefore, it should be straight forward, shouldn't it?
However, he sent off the paper work on 18th December 2017 - and now today (24th June 2018) we have still not heard anything back. He phones quite regularly but they will not give him an update on how the application is going - they just say it is in a processing queue.
Considering that land registry aim to deal with applications within 6-8 weeks, surely this is a little ridiculous?
We thought we would have a house for the summer! alas, we don't!
So can anyone give me advice on this? Also, is there any way that we can buy a new property without the stamp duty charges? Is there anyway of getting a joint mortgage but for the time being just having my name on the deeds (we have obviously discussed this etc) and then transferring his name after? Would this alleviate us from the second property stamp duty, or is this even possible?

Your help much greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Thrugelmir

Land Registry rep will be around during the week and no doubt pick up on your post.

davidmcn

The transfer completed whenever the deed was signed - why does he think he needs to wait until registration has been processed?

da_rule

When you say 'requested', what exactly has he done?

The only way to transfer ownership is by deed, therefore if he's simply written to them this wouldn't be sufficient.

davidmcn

da_rule wrote: »

When you say 'requested', what exactly has he done?

The only way to transfer ownership is by deed, therefore if he's simply written to them this wouldn't be sufficient.

I would hope that if he had submitted something which was clearly incompetent then the LR would have bounced it immediately rather than spend 6+ months thinking about it.

lizzieb1410

As far as I'm aware he has submitted a transfer of equity request or something to that effect -

Thank you for your replies.
Davidmcn I'm not 100% sure what you mean (I'm not very clued up with all of this!!!)
When the house was bought outright his name was put on the title deeds and therefore they have joint ownership. What he's essentially trying to do is transfer the equity that he currently has to her (basically give her half the house if this makes sense) so that he won't own any of the property and he will be off of the title deeds. Does this make sense?

Thanks!

davidmcn

lizzieb1410 wrote: »

Davidmcn I'm not 100% sure what you mean (I'm not very clued up with all of this!!!)
When the house was bought outright his name was put on the title deeds and therefore they have joint ownership. What he's essentially trying to do is transfer the equity that he currently has to her (basically give her half the house if this makes sense) so that he won't own any of the property and he will be off of the title deeds. Does this make sense?

Yes - my point is that (assuming the "paperwork" was done properly) he ceased being an owner whenever he signed and handed it over. However long the Land Registry takes to process it is irrelevant. Why does he think he needs to wait until they've finished registering it?

lizzieb1410

I'm not sure why he does. Firstly we haven't been told whether the paperwork was filled in correctly or not, and I don't actually know - I am guessing that we both just assumed that you had to wait for it to go through before you could be considered the deeds to be changed?
The ex has not had to sign anything yet etc - I think we also assumed that she would have to agree to it before it was 'put through - As in the deeds had been changed in order for us to go ahead with buying another house.

Thanks for your reply - what are your thoughts?

davidmcn

If you don't know the answers then it would probably be easier if you get your partner to come here and talk to us.

lizzieb1410

I take your point but he couldn't get his account to verify and also he is working at the moment and therefore asked me to post on his behalf.
He is about as able to answer that question as me - we both thought that the process wouldn't be complete until he had received confirmation that it had gone through because:
1) he filled out the paperwork himself and we have had no indication that it has been filled out correctly.
2) we both thought that surely his ex would have to sign something to say she was happy for this to take place and as far as were aware she hasn't received anything of the sort.

If the paper work has been filled out incorrectly do you know what happens? Will the application have to go through the whole process again (and the wait) or would it just be a case of making the changes, sending it to them and they Will proceed with the application from where it left off?

Thanks for your help I know it must be frustrating trying to answers questions through a third party who doesn't have too much understanding- but we are just trying our best to get some answers as best we can!

RADDERS

Could you download the land registry details for the property and see if he is still named, it only costs £3