Title Deeds merge for house and land

He1kin_01

Hello! We are already involved in the process with our solicitor, but it seems to be massively more complicated than I think it needs to be, so thought I'd ask in here if anyone else has had the same problems / resolutions!
My OH and I bought a house together 3 years ago with a mortgage (all normal!) He had previously sold a house in Somerset and made a chunk on it, so when the opportunity arose to buy the field behind us, we were fortunate to able to jump at it (again, so far all good!) 
The issue we're having, is adding the land to the title deeds of the house so that we can get a further advance on the existing mortgage, in order to build stables on the land (planning permission also all sorted!) Land Registry have said they can't merge the 2 because they are separate legal entities?! The house is mortgaged, the land isn't. After a little bit of advice from an insider at Halifax, our solicitor has written to Halifax legal dept to ask them to send us a letter of consent so that we can send that to Land Registry in order to merge the deeds. 
This has been going on for months. We're getting the distinct impression, that nobody has ever done this before, but that can't possibly be the case??!! Anyone else have any experience and any idea what we do next?! The Christmas break is going to halt things for a couple of weeks, but I could really, really do with this being sorted (3 months ago!!) The land purchase completed last Easter and we're still trying to tie up paperwork! 
Many thanks! 

davidmcn

He1kin_01 said:

Land Registry have said they can't merge the 2 because they are separate legal entities?!

What exactly have they said? The pieces of land are separate legal entities? Or they're owned by separate legal entities? The latter makes more sense (if it's true!).

I'm not sure why the Halifax would want the titles merged, it's hardly uncommon for one property to be registered over more than one title.

flashg67

Not an expert but not sure this can/needs to be done?  I'm buying  a house that has had extra land added over time and there is just a separate deed & an extra entry in the land registry along the the lines of 'land to the rear of 1 Acacia Ave......' and a separate plan showing the outline(s) of the land. Our mortgage provider hasn't queried this at all, just asked the solicitor to check it's the same as what we're buying.

MWT

He1kin_01 said:

Land Registry have said they can't merge the 2 because they are separate legal entities?

I'm sure @Land_Registry will be along soon to give you some insight, but for now, are both of the titles owned by both of you in the same capacity?

Land_Registry

MWT has asked the key Q here as I suspect they can’t be amalgamated as not owned in same way/capacity or wrong classes of title.
Do you have one of the title numbers?

He1kin_01

Hi. Both the house and the land are jointly owned by me and my partner and we want the land to be on the deeds of the house to raise the value of the house. So rather than a 3 bed cottage with small garden, we're a 3 bed cottage with 7 acres and stables? Obviously would've cost us much more to buy the house today, as it is now, than it would've done 3 years ago, as it was then? I'll dig out the title numbers and send it over. Thank you. 

Land_Registry

You can just as easily sell it as two titles as you can one. Amalgamating them adds no registration value. So you are still selling a house plus land and stables as 2 titles. 

But let’s see what the titles reveal 

He1kin_01

Hi. NYK218459. Our issue isn't about selling the house. We want to merge the titles in order to increase the value of the house and borrow more against it for improvements (is it termed a Further Advance?!) Thanks 😊

theoretica

I am surprised you can't use two separate titles as security for one mortgage.

MWT

theoretica said:

I am surprised you can't use two separate titles as security for one mortgage.

You can, but some lenders appear to have a problem with it...

https://www.todaysconveyancer.co.uk/main-news/two-titles-too-complicated/

He1kin_01

We're still waiting to hear back from the lender. Is taking an age, and we don't know whether it's because they're on skeleton staff or because we're asking for the impossible!