Just discovered my land title deeds do not cover the area my house occupies - What happens next?

Mikecfb

We purchased our house 5 years ago through the normal process - solicitors etc for a few thousand over £260,000. There was unclaimed land either side of the property and the previous owners transferred their previous years of occupation of that land to us when we purchased the house. We now have the required period of possession and were proceeding for adverse possession with a new firm of solicitors. During this process we have established that the land registry title for our home only covers a few metres wide strip on the land we thought we didn't own and is about 5m away from the land our house is situated on. The house is in Wales and I have lodged a complaint with the previous solicitors but they are dragging their heels. What should I be doing to resolve this and can I expect compensation from the firm of solicitors that did the conveyancing. I am due to retire in 4 months and we were hoping to sell up and move to the coast but I think that dream will have to wait :-(

AdrianC

Sorry, I'm confused. Your title includes land you didn't know you owned?

Your title won't show the land that you're trying to get adverse possession on. Once you get it, that land will be under a different title -  but, until you do, it will continue to be unregistered. That's not the same as not having an owner, it just means there's no centralised register of who that owner is...

Presumably, when you bought the property, you went over the LR title's map with your solicitor to confirm that it was what you thought you were buying? After all, the solicitor never visited the plot.

UnderOffer

Like Adrian asks, did you see the LR title map normally outlined in Red, showing your home and original plot size, excluding the additional pieces of land? 

davidmcn

Do you mean all that was transferred was the "claimed" land and not the house itself? Is that still in the name of the people who sold to you? It's up to your previous solicitors to sort it out, if they fail to do so then you can get your current solicitors to do so at their expense. And your current solicitors should be able to explain all of this to you.

Mikecfb

The map we were shown when we purchased the house appeared to be an old photocopy and did not show the position of our house on the map but just the strip of land the deed represented. The map the new solicitors obtained (Below) showed the land covered by the deeds and also showed the position of our home on the 'unregistered land'.

Tiglet2

Mikecfb said:

We purchased our house 5 years ago through the normal process - solicitors etc for a few thousand over £260,000. There was unclaimed land either side of the property and the previous owners transferred their previous years of occupation of that land to us when we purchased the house. We now have the required period of possession and were proceeding for adverse possession with a new firm of solicitors. During this process we have established that the land registry title for our home only covers a few metres wide strip on the land we thought we didn't own and is about 5m away from the land our house is situated on. The house is in Wales and I have lodged a complaint with the previous solicitors but they are dragging their heels. What should I be doing to resolve this and can I expect compensation from the firm of solicitors that did the conveyancing. I am due to retire in 4 months and we were hoping to sell up and move to the coast but I think that dream will have to wait :-(

Following your purchase of the house 5 years ago, you would have received the updated Register of Title from your solicitor.  This would have a Title Number on the document - does that match the Title Plan Number you would have received during the course of the transaction?  Do you have any correspondence from when you purchased showing the Title Number?  If you check the Title Number at the Land Registry, does it correspond with your house or the unclaimed land?  It costs £3 to download the Title Register and £3 to download the Title Plan.  It might be that the unclaimed land is on a different Title No, but you own both.

davidmcn

Tiglet2 said:

Mikecfb said:

We purchased our house 5 years ago through the normal process - solicitors etc for a few thousand over £260,000. There was unclaimed land either side of the property and the previous owners transferred their previous years of occupation of that land to us when we purchased the house. We now have the required period of possession and were proceeding for adverse possession with a new firm of solicitors. During this process we have established that the land registry title for our home only covers a few metres wide strip on the land we thought we didn't own and is about 5m away from the land our house is situated on. The house is in Wales and I have lodged a complaint with the previous solicitors but they are dragging their heels. What should I be doing to resolve this and can I expect compensation from the firm of solicitors that did the conveyancing. I am due to retire in 4 months and we were hoping to sell up and move to the coast but I think that dream will have to wait :-(

Following your purchase of the house 5 years ago, you would have received the updated Register of Title from your solicitor.  This would have a Title Number on the document - does that match the Title Plan Number you would have received during the course of the transaction?  Do you have any correspondence from when you purchased showing the Title Number?  If you check the Title Number at the Land Registry, does it correspond with your house or the unclaimed land?  It costs £3 to download the Title Register and £3 to download the Title Plan.  It might be that the unclaimed land is on a different Title No, but you own both.

What the OP has copied above appears to show that the house is still unregistered.

theoretica

Do you have the old paper deeds?

TBagpuss

If you bought 5 years ago, then if the land the house is on was unregistered, it would normally have been registered as part of the process, but would have a separate title number from the separate strip.
our solicitors should be able to search and check whether the land is still unregistered, in which case you will need he original, physical deeds, and to apply for first registration. 
Assuming that you checked the documents and information given you by the solicitors who dealt with your purchase, it does sound as though they may have dropped the ball, and if that is the case, they or their insurers should cover the costs of soring this out for you. 

GDB2222

The problem here is that the solicitor sits in an office miles from the site (sometimes hundreds of miles) and he never compares what's on the ground with what he's conveying. As this is what all solicitors do, it's not even obvious that the solicitor in this case has been negligent in any way. Indeed, as he's not a surveyor, I doubt that the solicitor is even qualified to make that check.

It seems to be up to the client to compare the LR plan with what's on the ground.  In a town, there are usually enough landmarks for things to be pretty obvious, but, in the countryside, the client would be well advised to get a surveyor in to check the boundaries against the LR plan.

greatcrested

Mikecfb said:

The map we were shown when we purchased the house appeared to be an old photocopy and did not show the position of our house on the map but just the strip of land the deed represented. The map the new solicitors obtained (Below) showed the land covered by the deeds and also showed the position of our home on the 'unregistered land'.

Was the property registered or unregistered when you bought it?

If registered, then you would have been shown the registered Title Plan, which appears to be what you are now looking at. It was therefore your responsibility to confirm to your solicitor(who had never seen the property) that the Plan correctly identified what you thought you were buying.

If unregistered, you would have been shown paper deeds from previous sales. Again you should have carefully compared the Plan on those deeds against what you had viewed and intended to own. But it is possible that despite your comparing and confirming those deeds were accurate, perhaps an error was made during the 1st Registration process, either by your solicitor or the Land Registry, so that the newly registered Plan did not accurately reflect the paper deeds.

You now need to establish which. Any compensation (if any) will depend on what happened and where the fault lay ie you, your solicitor or the LR).

One option might be to simply continue the Adverse Possession claim, which would include your house, though I accept buyers might be put off by the limited possessory title.