Landlocked House!

Leeds8888

stator wrote: »

It's unlikely the land registry will make unilateral changes to title deeds, even if they are unbalanced.
To do amend the deeds you would probably need the written consent of the other title holders and this could take a while.


An indemnity might be available and solve your problem in the short term.

Land registry wouldn't have to change anyone else's title deeds, just add on to ours the same thing which is contained in the other 3 houses on the terrace AND incidently, what WAS on ours but seems to have been missed off subsequent conveyances.

lincroft1710

Until you have confirmed access rights, do not contemplate exchanging contracts!

This is something your vendor should have sorted out before marketing the house. You may even want to start looking for another property.

Leeds8888

lincroft1710 wrote: »

Until you have confirmed access rights, do not contemplate exchanging contracts!

This is something your vendor should have sorted out before marketing the house. You may even want to start looking for another property.

The vendor is a huge, well known firm of solicitors selling in their capacity as a trustees on behalf of the estate of an old lady who passed away. To say they have been unhelpful is the understatement of the year. It has taken them 8 months since they accepted our offer just to provide the deeds to our solicitor. They have ignored us, taken months to reply, sent the wrong documents and generally been uncooperative. We don't know whether this is because they are a very big firm of overworked solicitors who don't really care if it sells or not or maybe something more sinister.

We are getting such mixed messages from friends and family. Our solicitor has said his function is to provide us with their findings and we make the decision. He hasn't advised not to buy, but I am also aware that if we pull out he doesnt get paid!

We really need to know whether the land registry will register the right of way in favour of us which are contained in our neighbours deeds, but the internet doesnt seem to know and our solicitor has said he cant possibly comment apart from they plan to ask them to if we proceed.

What are our options?

babyblade41

From my understanding after just gone through adverse possession, you would have to prove this access to LR with facts and proof of why it should be included.

Someone 's say so won't be enough.

Possessory title can be mortgageable and quite often is, many older properties where paper deeds have been lost and property never registered.

Ask on the LR forum and someone will reply from LR but you will probably have to wait until Monday. They respond very quickly or you can go to LR community pages where again they reply very quickly

Leeds8888

babyblade41 wrote: »

From my understanding after just gone through adverse possession, you would have to prove this access to LR with facts and proof of why it should be included.

Someone 's say so won't be enough.

Possessory title can be mortgageable and quite often is, many older properties where paper deeds have been lost and property never registered.

Ask on the LR forum and someone will reply from LR but you will probably have to wait until Monday. They respond very quickly or you can go to LR community pages where again they reply very quickly

Thanks for the advise! I was under the impression from our solicitor that it would be Title Absolute! The deeds havent been lost, its just the right of way hasnt been included in each sale since 1839.

kazwookie

DON'T SIGN ANYTHING, until it is sorted out!

hb2

I understand you are under time pressure because the mortgage offer is due to expire. However, I strongly second the advice not to exchange until this is sorted out. You are contractually obliged to buy the property as soon as exchange has taken place.

AnotherJoe

See if you can get an extension on the mortgage. If not, apply again.

Dont sign.
I am sure the executors will get their *rs*s in gear when you say you wont exchange until the title and access is sorted.
I'm very surprised that with a mortgage your solicitor would let you sign anyway.
Oh, and dont sign until its sorted.

Leeds8888

AnotherJoe wrote: »

See if you can get an extension on the mortgage. If not, apply again.

Dont sign.
I am sure the executors will get their *rs*s in gear when you say you wont exchange until the title and access is sorted.
I'm very surprised that with a mortgage your solicitor would let you sign anyway.
Oh, and dont sign until its sorted.

We are thinking that surely they would agree to register it first if they saw no problem, rather than having to put it back on the market and find another buyer. Do you think thats a sensible assumption?

I am mindful that our solicitor doesn't get paid unless we buy the house; so whilst I'm sure he wouldn't present the facts wrongly to us I think he also isn't trying to put us off. So long as he can get an Absence of Easement policy in place then thats good enough for him....and maybe it should be good enough for us, but what happens if the ROW was challenged, the insurance fought it and lost! We are really out of our depth in trying to decide whats best!

I just wish we knew how likely the Land Registry are to add the right of way on to our title. It does afterall talk about or right of way over the land whos register it is on! It seems to me to be common sense, but I'm not a property solicitor and I cant find anything on google which gives us any indication as to what LR do in this situation.

davidmcn

Leeds8888 wrote: »

what happens if the ROW was challenged, the insurance fought it and lost!

Then the insurers pay out the loss in value of the property (all the way up to whatever you paid for it). Though in practice, the insurers would probably agree a price for the grant of access rights.