house next door isnt registered and its affecting my sale

margi_g

I live in the countryside and I have my house on the market.
People love the house but they have raised questions about the land next door. Its derelict and the owner died .The relatives of this person have tried to sell it twice and it has fallen through twice.They say its because its not registered with land registry.Their solicitor has said he will sell it at auction because" they dont ask as many questions there". That is what one of the relatives told me . Is there something odd going on here?
My estate agent cant understand why they dont register the land themselves, apparently this is this procedure isnt complicated.and is done with unregistered land upon inheritance .
I am not sure why the heirs havent done this its affecting my sale What can I do if anything?

davidmcn

Buy it from them?

Not a lot you can do unless e.g. the condition of their property is actually causing damage to yours, or there's an environmental health aspect to it. If it's just that your buyers don't like the look of it, nothing you can do about that. Some councils are proactive about getting residential property back into occupation, so you might want to ask them.

AdrianC

There is no problem with the property not being registered. I suspect the problem is that the vendor can't find the old paper deeds, so it can't be registered with absolute title, only possessory.

The status of next door's registration or title makes absolutely zero difference to your property. It's the derelict state that's causing you the issue...

G_M

If they register the property, I suspect they would have to do so in the names of the Beneficiaries whereas at present they can sell as Executers/Administrators of the Estate.


That might expose the Bs to Capital Gains Tax (if the sale price is greater than the value used for Probate). But that should not realy be an issue (and would be better than selling at auction I'd have thought).



the only other reason I can think of for not registering the property and then selling is that they do not have the Deeds, so cannot prove ownership- quite plausible if they are Executers of the Estate and cannot find the paperwork in the house.


Yhey'd then have to register it with 'Limited Title' which might well put off many buyers. At auction, many buyers expect properties to have issues - if not Title issues then bad surveys, or sitting tenants etc, and are more willing to take them on in reurn for a potential bargain.......

margi_g

can a buyer at auction reverse the sale if there are issues that have not been disclosed.We have been advised by our solicitor that if the auction house or vendors dont admit the house is accessed over someone elses land we have to tell the auction house as its our land the house is accessed over

davidmcn

margi_g wrote: »

can a buyer at auction reverse the sale if there are issues that have not been disclosed.

No.

We have been advised by our solicitor that if the auction house or vendors dont admit the house is accessed over someone elses land we have to tell the auction house as its our land the house is accessed over

I would expect this to be apparent to any potential buyers anyway. Are you saying they don't have a right to cross your land?

getmore4less

margi_g wrote: »

can a buyer at auction reverse the sale if there are issues that have not been disclosed.We have been advised by our solicitor that if the auction house or vendors dont admit the house is accessed over someone elses land we have to tell the auction house as its our land the house is accessed over

Fairly vital bit of information you missed of the first post.

No wonder people are not happy to proceed

If that is the only access then by the sounds of it the property will need significant work or become a development project with access over something people just bought.

You need to so some leg work here to get this resolved if you want a sale. collect all the information needed to put buyers minds at rest over access or buy the pace and sort it out.

margi_g

does anyone know how to find out who has been paying the council tax for this property? Could I find out from the local council?

margi_g

They never had any deeds of the place and still dont. I dont mind them using the access but nothing has been formalized about access

AdrianC

margi_g wrote: »

does anyone know how to find out who has been paying the council tax for this property? Could I find out from the local council?

It's totally irrelevant to your situation, and they shouldn't tell you anyway.

da_rule

The only way it may impact on your sale is if the missing deeds turn up and contain some historic deed granting rights over your property, which were not recorded in your deeds.

However, you can get fairly cheap indemnity policies to guard against this.

I cannot see that you would have an obligation to tell the auction house anything. If it is obvious that the only way to access is over your land then there would most likely be an easement by necessity. If there are other ways to access then it’s up to the seller and buyer to provide the evidence of any prescriptive easement.