Unregistered lease?

boomish

Has anyone any advice on an surprise unregistered lease on our house we have lived in for 25 years? we are remortgaging our house as our existing mortgage has come to an end after 18 years, it has taken some while to sort out but we finally got an offer but the solicitor that has been provided by the broker sent this in an email with out mortgage deed to sign for the new mortgage.

“We note from review of the land registry title that there is an unregistered lease coming out of the freehold title:

4. Lease dated 20 May 1895 to xxxx xxxxxx for 90 years from 24 June 1891.

Please could you confirm if you have indemnity for this from when a previous transaction took place on the property or if you would like me to supply you with a quote in order for us to purchase this upon completion? “

We have never heard of this before so can’t understand why this is being picked up now.

Appreciate any advice anyone has, money is extremely tight and have no idea why we weren’t told this when we purchased the house.do we need to pay this solicitor to sort this out?

davidmcn

I'd expect the cost of the insurance to be relatively trivial. If the last time anybody looked at your titles was 18 years ago, are you sure it might not have been dealt with similarly at the time and you've just forgotten?

AdrianC

A ninety year lease from 1891?

Can nobody add up?

That would have expired nearly 40 years ago. What possible good will an indemnity policy do anybody, fertheloveofgawd...?

greatcrested

1891 - 1894 x 99 = errr...  about £120 straight into the insurance company's profit sheet, with a 10% commission to the solicitor.

davidmcn

AdrianC said:

A ninety year lease from 1891?

Can nobody add up?

That would have expired nearly 40 years ago. What possible good will an indemnity policy do anybody, fertheloveofgawd...?

Is it as straightforward as that? If the lease definitely automatically terminated at the end of the original term, why hasn't the Land Registry removed it? (or anybody deal with it 18 or 25 years ago?)

AdrianC

davidmcn said:

AdrianC said:

A ninety year lease from 1891?

Can nobody add up?

That would have expired nearly 40 years ago. What possible good will an indemnity policy do anybody, fertheloveofgawd...?

Is it as straightforward as that? If the lease definitely automatically terminated at the end of the original term

Unless it's been extended. Which there's no evidence of.

why hasn't the Land Registry removed it? (or anybody deal with it 18 or 25 years ago?)

"Removed it"? The LR are just acting a repository of old documents relating to the property, in connection with their main job - telling you who owns what NOW.

In 1894, there was a lease valid from 1891 to 1981. That's all that bit of the freehold says. The question isn't why should LR bin anything that's no longer relevant, but why is somebody getting excited about it in 2020? Nobody was excited about it in 1995 or 2002 - and rightly so.

boomish

Thanks for the replies, well that’s exactly what I thought why is this solicitor bringing this up, this lease ended years ago.
davidmcn said:

I'd expect the cost of the insurance to be relatively trivial. If the last time anybody looked at your titles was 18 years ago, are you sure it might not have been dealt with similarly at the time and you've just forgotten?

I can’t remember this ever being mentioned but I shall go though all our documents when we get back, we are away at the moment.
I’ll ask this new solicitor why this is still relevant.

davidmcn

AdrianC said:

davidmcn said:

AdrianC said:

A ninety year lease from 1891?

Can nobody add up?

That would have expired nearly 40 years ago. What possible good will an indemnity policy do anybody, fertheloveofgawd...?

Is it as straightforward as that? If the lease definitely automatically terminated at the end of the original term

Unless it's been extended. Which there's no evidence of.

why hasn't the Land Registry removed it? (or anybody deal with it 18 or 25 years ago?)

"Removed it"? The LR are just acting a repository of old documents relating to the property, in connection with their main job - telling you who owns what NOW.

But their job isn't only keeping the proprietorship up to date, it's telling you about everything else which currently affects the property, not merely archiving everything which has ever happened to it and leaving you to figure out what's still relevant. So if it's disclosing a lease, that suggests nobody has given the LR persuasive evidence that the lease is no longer extant and should be removed from the landlord's title. Leases can after all continue beyond the original term without further deeds being registered against the landlord's interest.

AdrianC

davidmcn said:

AdrianC said:

davidmcn said:

AdrianC said:

A ninety year lease from 1891?

Can nobody add up?

That would have expired nearly 40 years ago. What possible good will an indemnity policy do anybody, fertheloveofgawd...?

Is it as straightforward as that? If the lease definitely automatically terminated at the end of the original term

Unless it's been extended. Which there's no evidence of.

why hasn't the Land Registry removed it? (or anybody deal with it 18 or 25 years ago?)

"Removed it"? The LR are just acting a repository of old documents relating to the property, in connection with their main job - telling you who owns what NOW.

But their job isn't only keeping the proprietorship up to date, it's telling you about everything else which currently affects the property, not merely archiving everything which has ever happened to it and leaving you to figure out what's still relevant. So if it's disclosing a lease, that suggests nobody has given the LR persuasive evidence that the lease is no longer extant and should be removed from the landlord's title. Leases can after all continue beyond the original term without further deeds being registered against the landlord's interest.

Indeed. As I said in the post you replied to and quoted.

And that could still be the case, even if that 1890s note was no longer in the LR file.

boomish

Thanks again for the replies, we are back now and I have been through all of the documents that came from the sale 25 years ago and I have lots of old documents including the rather beautiful hand written original lease dated 1895, interestingly it also includes the next door property! Looks more like a rental agreement. Although the lease is mentioned in the HM land registry document its in a section called "Charges register" There is no mention of it from our previous solicitor or mortgage company when we purchased it. The land title is "Title Absolute" on the register but I can't see any indemnity note about the lease. Am thinking maybe I can call the land registry , I think this is an old lease thats no longer viable that hasn't be removed from the land registry, otherwise why wasn't it picked up before. 
Appreciate any advice.