Pressure to complete and move into a house without title deeds being registered

ashleyjames

hi guys, first time I'm using this so not sure if this has been spoken about before. 
My mother is in the process of buying a 40% share in a shared ownership property.  She put the reservation fee down on the 23rd jan 2 days after moving out of her house as her buyers had wanted to move in. When she put the reservation fee down she was told it would take between 8 to 10 weeks to complete. She's currently still living with my grandparents. She put the reservation down in Jan and we're now in May and weeks passed the "expected completion date". She found out 5 weeks ago her sellers solicitor had yet to send over draft contacts despite being contacted by her solicitors repeatedly. (They have now been received). She's is currently at the point where the land registry is awaiting an enquiry back from her sellers solicitor but they've had the enquiry back since April 11th and haven't answered anything so far. Which without them replying to the enquiry hm land registry cannot progress the application and everything is on hold until they do. Her solicitor says once the title registration is done she could complete within a week or two as once they have the registration they can send across the last two enquires needed to complete and exchange. Throughout the process however starting from the 2nd week in March the move agent has been asking if mum would like to move in without the deeds telling her its possible to complete without them and have them sent though later. Her solicitor has advised against doing so because of no.1 the 2 outstanding enquiries and no.2 because if we move in without them we might never see them.... mum's in a position now living with her parents where she doesn't know if she can move in to the house or if she has to rent somewhere for 6months because nobody seems to be doing anything much. Obviously she knows we're in lockdown and that's affected some areas. But for the sake of answering 1 enquiry to the land registry they could do that without much difficulty?... is there anyway to put pressure on our sellers solicitors so she can get the enquiry answered and moved to completion quicker?  Thanks for any help in advance.  If it helps she's paying cash not mortgage. 

Tiglet2

Sorry, I don't know much about shared ownership, but If your mum completes without the remaining enquiries answered or the correct deeds*, then there will be absolutely no incentive for the seller's solicitor to do any more work at all.  If your mum's solicitor refuses to exchange and complete until it is all sorted, then the seller's solicitor has a pressing need to crack on with the outstanding issues. 
* Has this property recently been bought by a developer and therefore the transfer from the original seller to the developer has not been registered/finalised yet?

However, seeing that your solicitor has had the draft contract for only 5 weeks (or less), it sounds like early doors to me.  Putting a reservation fee down and being told it would take 8-10 weeks by a sales agent keen to make the sale, means nothing in the legal world.  The transaction only started when the draft contracts were received by your mum's solicitor.

pinkteapot

Listen to the solicitor's advise, and don't complete till it's resolved. 

To get a realistic sense of timescale, ask her solicitor whether the relevant enquiries team at the Land Registry is still working, and what their turnaround time is. I know the team that registers properties to new names after completion isn't working at all at the moment. We completed on a purchase in November and it still isn't registered to us - my solicitor said a couple of weeks ago that registrations aren't being processed at the moment. Hopefully pre-completion enquiries are still being answered (albeit slowly) as they're more time-sensitive. 

princeofpounds

Her solicitor is right. She needs to push back on the Estate Agent, tell him it is unacceptable to even think of exchange or complete with outstanding enquiries and that the seller needs to provide clarity on the delay.

As Tiglet says, the legal timeline doesn't really start from January, so the time taken so far isn't actually that unusual. For that reason it's probably not worth going down the 'answer my enquiries or I walk' route yet. But she needs to be firm with the seller (through EA and solicitor) and whenever pressure is applied, simply ask why the EA isn't talking to the seller instead as they should be.

ashleyjames

Tiglet2 said:

Sorry, I don't know much about shared ownership, but If your mum completes without the remaining enquiries answered or the correct deeds*, then there will be absolutely no incentive for the seller's solicitor to do any more work at all.  If your mum's solicitor refuses to exchange and complete until it is all sorted, then the seller's solicitor has a pressing need to crack on with the outstanding issues. 
* Has this property recently been bought by a developer and therefore the transfer from the original seller to the developer has not been registered/finalised yet?

However, seeing that your solicitor has had the draft contract for only 5 weeks (or less), it sounds like early doors to me.  Putting a reservation fee down and being told it would take 8-10 weeks by a sales agent keen to make the sale, means nothing in the legal world.  The transaction only started when the draft contracts were received by your mum's solicitor.

the house is a new build, as per yesterday afternoon the "sellers agent" told us that she had seen the chain of emails and the enquiry had been answer as of last week. After contacting Land registry direct by email mum received a reply stating it still hasn't been answered. She's not dealing with an estate agent she's buying the house directly from the accossiation. 

From what I believe after talking to mum if it makes things any simpler is that the housing association she is buying from is chasing the developers that built the houses to have the association registered in their name so that they can grant her the lease? So sounds similar to what you said. Mum's solisitor has said that they do seem to be taking along time as we are in a position to complete. 

Mums now been asked 4 times as of yesterday if she would like to move in without title registration and it just seems off to me. Mum's saved all her life and worked to get where she is now and the idea of having to move in without deeds and potentially losing her money at some point due to completing without deeds is really upsetting her. She's just in limbo at the moment. One enquiry away from completion and no completion date even spoken about as of yet. Is this the normal process these days ? 

Thanks for replying 

ashleyjames

pinkteapot said:

Listen to the solicitor's advise, and don't complete till it's resolved. 

To get a realistic sense of timescale, ask her solicitor whether the relevant enquiries team at the Land Registry is still working, and what their turnaround time is. I know the team that registers properties to new names after completion isn't working at all at the moment. We completed on a purchase in November and it still isn't registered to us - my solicitor said a couple of weeks ago that registrations aren't being processed at the moment. Hopefully pre-completion enquiries are still being answered (albeit slowly) as they're more time-sensitive. 

Due to living with her elderly parents in these covid19 days, hm land registry agreed to expedite the process back at the beginning of April so that the process could get sped up and help mum move into the house so that my grandparents aren't at anymore risk. (Both in their late 90's) land registry have requested the enquiry from the developers solicitors 4 weeks back. And as of yesterday still hasn't been answered despite mums move agent saying that she had seen the chain of emails answering the enquiry?..... just sounds like she's getting fobbed off to me but I've never gone through this process before so don't know if all of this is common place or not. 

Thanks for your reply. 

steampowered

Unless I've misunderstood the circumstances, personally I wouldn't be buying a property without registered title. Having the title is pretty fundamental as the house is worthless without it.

If she did buy without registered title, I wonder if the registration would then become your mum's problem incurring additional legal fees?

I'd just be telling the agent "no", and encouraging them to use their time chasing the sellers instead.

ashleyjames

princeofpounds said:

Her solicitor is right. She needs to push back on the Estate Agent, tell him it is unacceptable to even think of exchange or complete with outstanding enquiries and that the seller needs to provide clarity on the delay.

As Tiglet says, the legal timeline doesn't really start from January, so the time taken so far isn't actually that unusual. For that reason it's probably not worth going down the 'answer my enquiries or I walk' route yet. But she needs to be firm with the seller (through EA and solicitor) and whenever pressure is applied, simply ask why the EA isn't talking to the seller instead as they should be.

We don't have an EA to act though she is buying the property direct from housing association. She does have a move agent who is liasing between us, the housing and the sellers solisitors. 

Should mum be calling and contacting every day now or do anything more than she is doing. It feels like between both me and mum we've done most of it for them having to call to arrange things being set over and chasing and I just don't know what to think. I've never bought a property and I've never dealt with law types for anything so don't know if this is normaly or not.  Don't think mum's actually too bothered about how long it takes she's just wants a date to stick to or know time time around when she'll be moving in. She's worried at the moment with the corona virus and living with her parents that she'll pass it on. But she doesn't have the money to stay in hotels, and if she starts to rent somewhere then she'll only be able to go for like 6 month tenancies in which case if she got her completion date before her 6 month term is up she'd either have to complete and owe the rest of the money to the rental which she can't afford to do either really, or stay in the flat and not complete and lose the house. If they just told her yeah you can get a 6 month tenancy and we'll save the house it would make her feel more chilled. But she's just hanging around not knowing what to do for the best from week to week. 

gwynlas

Tell mum to sit tight and let the professionals sort it out. unless you are in a part of the country with different lockdown restrictions then things are gradually getting back to normal and she should just factor in lockdown time.
Solicitors do not really respond well to continous phone calls.

ashleyjames

steampowered said:

Unless I've misunderstood the circumstances, personally I wouldn't be buying a property without registered title. Having the title is pretty fundamental as the house is worthless without it.

If she did buy without registered title, I wonder if the registration would then become your mum's problem incurring additional legal fees?

I'd just be telling the agent "no", and encouraging them to use their time chasing the sellers instead.

Thanks for the reply. Yes she's pretty much been told the same by her solisitor. Apparently it does happen her move manage told her that she herself completed on her house without title registration (I'll take that with a pinch of salt personally) she's also said that there are other people on the same estate in the same position and their OK with moving in without title registration( again since solisitors act in best interest of client I can't see any other solicitor being ok with it( so I'll take that with a pinch of salt also)

The move agent actually advised mum yesterday that all that would happen is if she wanted to sell up in 10 years she'd need to chase the deeds up which sounds quite alarming to me why should she have to. 

Land registry agreed to speed up the process the only thing putting a block on it is the developers solicitor not replying to an enquiry that they just have to hop on to a portal and press send surely? 

ashleyjames

gwynlas said:

Tell mum to sit tight and let the professionals sort it out. unless you are in a part of the country with different lockdown restrictions then things are gradually getting back to normal and she should just factor in lockdown time.
Solicitors do not really respond well to continous phone calls.

Thanks for your reply. I'm sure mum doesn't want to keep calling she's just more anxious about not having a clear path forward at the moment. Land registry agreed to expedite the process so it just seems bad form to me that land registry is being kept waiting when its just the one enquiry.