Restrictive covernment. Disapply

Haircut15

Who's solicitor should apply to disapply a restriction for the purpose of selling/buying a property??
Vendors solicitor seems lost in how to go about disapplying the restrictive covernment.

princeofpounds

The vendor is the one bound by any restrictive covenants on the property, so only they can do this.

As an uncommitted buyer, you can't contractually agree with a third party not to apply a covenant on a property you don't own.

When you say disapply, do you mean discharge or merely receive an undertaking from the beneficiary of the covenant not to enforce it? The former is a complex legal process. The latter is basically just a letter.

Would an indemnity insurance policy not be a possible path also, if it's a covenant that is unlikely to be enforced in practice?

Haircut15

Disapply for the purpose of selling/buying. A temporary way of removing restrictive covernment by the land registry 

princeofpounds

OK, I see what you mean now I've spent some time on Google.

Essentially someone eligible needs to fill out form RX2
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/order-to-disapply-or-modify-restriction-registration-rx2

In terms of who is eligible, that is set out here:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/1417/part/8/made
Specifically Section 96. However, all it states that the applicant have to explain why they have 'sufficient interest' in the matter, without defining what that means. Legally, interest usually means some kind of ownership or control rights, not just casual interest as we commonly use the word e.g. you have an 'insurable interest' in a property after exchanging contracts, not before. 

However, I suspect it's quite likely that the criteria used would be the same as for persons having sufficient interest to apply a restriction, and happily that is outlined very specifically in Section 93. It still seems to indicate this is the job of the owner.

There is a land registry rep on the board who will answer questions and has touched on form RX2 in the past - I'm sure they could advise you further. They are usually very responsive (unusually for a public sector organisation - I always like to give them credit for that). A quick forum search should bring up their user account/or thread. Sometimes they see the posts in other threads anyway.