Buying a property with limited title guarantee

de_nav

Hi There,

Hope you are well and keeping safe.
Wanted to get your advise on if we should go ahead and buy a property with limited title guarantee (the owner has passed away and the children are executing the sale). 
Our solicitor has told us that this is totally normal to get limited title guarantee when the property is being sold by executors. 
I had a look at the title from the land registry and it doesn't mention anything about the charges (mortgage free property) except some covenants dated: 1957 & 1977

Solicitors have offered the usual searches 
- Local Authority search
- Drainage & Water search
- Environmental search

On top of the usual they have offered some optional searches
- Plan search plus
- coal mining search
- radon gas search
- flood search
- HM Land registry searches
- Service Provider searches
- Tin Mining Search
- Chancel repair liability search

I was planning to ask my solicitors to conduct all these searches, but do you advise any other measure that I can use to protect myself in future with unexpected third party interests in the property. 

user1977

Isn't your solicitor offering any advice on which searches are normal/useful/relevant? For example, I can't think of any areas which would require both coal and tin mining searches. Where's the property?

de_nav

These are just the optional searches - Mandatory ones are the first three 

I am more concerned about protecting myself from any unexpected 3rd party interests e.g. financial/legal/religious/social/ etc in the property that are not revealed during the searches an can come back and bite me in the future.

Tiglet2

If you are purchasing with the aid of a mortgage, then you will need to get the mandatory searches (the first three) - local authority, environmental and water/drainage.  If anything is shown up on these searches which indicates further searches are required, they will recommend which ones you need to obtain.

Limited Title Guarantee:  This is used where the Seller of the property has no personal knowledge of the property. This is most often used in the case of a sale by an Attorney, the Executor of an Estate, where the property has been repossessed or by a Trustees or a Personal Representative.

The person selling cannot guarantee that the property is not subject to any financial charges, nor can they guarantee whether there are any rights over the property or give information on what rights there could be. They are unable to confirm whether there are any covenants which may affect the property.

However, your solicitor will do his due diligence in obtaining copies of old conveyances and transfers to ensure that when your application is submitted to the Land Registry following completion, that it will be with full title guarantee.  It is unlikely to be a problem.  The seller may provide a defective title indemnity policy for additional peace of mind.

AdrianC

de_nav said:

Wanted to get your advise on if we should go ahead and buy a property with limited title guarantee (the owner has passed away and the children are executing the sale). 
Our solicitor has told us that this is totally normal to get limited title guarantee when the property is being sold by executors. 

I had a look at the title from the land registry

So the executor of the deceased's estate has registered the property pre-sale?

This situation arises when the property has not been previously registered (because the deceased has been there for many years), and the executor cannot locate the paper deeds. Without those, there is no concrete proof of the deceased's ownership, which is why the registration is limited in its guarantee as to your good title.

The question is how certain are you that the deceased was indeed the owner...

Extra searches won't make a big difference.

Slinky

Our property is a Limited Title Guarantee, even though the executors had both lived in the property in their younger years. The fact the daughter is a solicitor probably had a lot to do with the very limited answers they gave to the questions asked!

steampowered

The "HM Land Registry Searches" sounds like they are needed !

I don't think searches for things like coal, tin, radon, flooding etc. would do much to identify third party interests.

wend33

So the executor of the deceased's estate has registered the property pre-sale?

This situation arises when the property has not been previously registered (because the deceased has been there for many years), and the executor cannot locate the paper deeds. Without those, there is no concrete proof of the deceased's ownership, which is why the registration is limited in its guarantee as to your good title.

You can still have a transfer with limited title guarantee with a registered title such as in this case with a sale by personal representatives

de_nav

Thanks so much for all the valued information, really appreciate it.

Believe the property is registered with HM Land Revenue hence my solicitors were provided with title by the seller's solicitors.
We have compile a list of questions and sent to our solicitors but solicitor's aren't sure if we will get answers to all.

We did ask our solicitors to check if we can get some kind of indemnity insurance or if sellers can fill and sign a cross-interest form but solicitors think that it might get declined too.