Probate - Administration of Transfer of Leasehold and Freehold

numbersrule

Hi to the Forum - this is my first post in a while, possibly ever - can't quite remember, so please bear with me as this is a lengthy post.

Myself and my brother are awaiting Probate for our late uncle who passed away last October.  HMCTS have sent back some of our document originals and have advised that their current timescales are to expect a response within 8 weeks, which would be towards the end of August as we submitted the application at the end of June.
In anticipation of the arrival of the Grant of Letters of Administration with Will Annexed, we need to prepare the way for a Transfer of Title of our uncle's residence from what was prior to 2015 a Leasehold of Joint Tenants in Common with our mother, the deceased's sister.  Our uncle's Will states that his 50% share of the house should go to our mother.

In 2015, the brewery (who own the pub across the road, and who at the time held the Freehold for our uncle's residence and several other neighbouring properties), offered the Leaseholders the Freehold for £100.  Up until 2015, our uncle was paying something like £4 per month for the ground rent.  I think the motive of the brewery was to remove the administrative burden of collecting the ground rent.  So the Leaseholders agreed to purchase the Freehold for said cost.

However, there was something of a balls up.

What happened was, the solicitors involved actually ended up with our uncle as the sole name on the Freehold.

Clearly, the intention would have been, naturally for both Leaseholders to be entered on the Freehold Registration, namely, our uncle and our mother.

So, the purpose of this discussion post is to find out if any Forum members have any opinions about what should happen next, and in what order, and with what HM Land Registry Forms to ensure that our mother is correctly attributed to both the Freehold, and Leasehold Registrations.

I thought I understood the difference between Leasehold and Freehold prior to this issue arising, but following various online searches to get to the bottom of what should happen and in what order, I feel I don't actually understand Leasehold and Freehold aspects at all.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Keep_pedalling

As your mother will now be the sole owner of the property, I don’t think the “balls up” matters too much as she inherits the freehold as well.

numbersrule

Keep_pedalling said:

As your mother will now be the sole owner of the property, I don’t think the “balls up” matters too much as she inherits the freehold as well.

Thanks - yes, the overall picture seems straightforward but my concern is that might the sole name on the Freehold cause some sort of impediment to the smooth operation of whatever HM Land Registry Forms need to be processed?

e.g. will it be necessary to correct the Freehold error, first, in a separate application, or will a simple one stop submission be sufficient to 'do it all at once' be OK?

I mean, the action of the Will is to transfer a Joint Tenants in Common to our mother.  But how does the action of the Will relate to the fact that our uncle, in the eyes of HM Land Registry, is actually the sole Freeholder?

Keep_pedalling

Hopefully the LR representative who regularly answers questions on this board will be able to advise.

numbersrule

Having looked again at the wording of the Will it simply says that our uncle's beneficial interest in the property is left to our mother, so I suppose that clears it up, because it doesn't really matter after all whether the Freehold is in joint names or in sole name because it passes to mum anyway.
What I had previously been confused about was the value of the property, but I suppose the very low sum paid for the Freehold means that there is next to no value in the Freehold anyway, so the incorrect sole name on the Freehold I suppose doesn't make any difference to who owned the real value in the property (the Leasehold) at DoD.