Still awaiting land register 18 month later

Jodiehx91

after after some advice on how to get my solicitor to speed things up. 

We moved into a property 18 month ago and was made aware we hadn’t been put on land register last October. I spoke to my solicitor who said they had an enquiry in July which had been replied to and all should be sorted. January came still nothing finding out that a further 2 emails had been sent in January then March came and I phoned the land register who said they had sent another email as the response the previous one was not adequate. After speaking to my solicitor they have informed me that they are still awaiting a Ds1 form from the previous owners solicitors. 

How do I go about speeding this process up 18 month seems like a long time to wait for something like this, should I be worried?. This is my first house so not sure how these things work. 

canaldumidi

Sounds like your seller has not paid off their mortgage so their mortgage charge is still regisered against the property. Ooops!

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mortgage-cancellation-of-entries-for-lenders-ds1

Your solicitor should have obtained a "solicitor's Undertaking" from the seller's solicitor that this would be done on Completion. If the seller's solicitor has failed to comply with their undertaking that's a serious breach of the solicitor's codes.

Report to SRA? I doubt you can (as you weren't their client) but your solicitor should know the process.

Jodiehx91

Thankyou my response from the solicitor is that it is out of their hands and all they can do is chase things up. 

I have mentioned the sra to them and see what is suggested from this. 

user1977

canaldumidi said:

Sounds like your seller has not paid off their mortgage so their mortgage charge is still regisered against the property. Ooops!

Much, much more likely that it has in fact been paid off, but the lender has been dozy about discharging the security. Banks are interested in getting their money, but much less so in tidying up the paperwork afterwards.

Jodiehx91

user1977 said:

canaldumidi said:

Sounds like your seller has not paid off their mortgage so their mortgage charge is still regisered against the property. Ooops!

Much, much more likely that it has in fact been paid off, but the lender has been dozy about discharging the security. Banks are interested in getting their money, but much less so in tidying up the paperwork afterwards.

All I keep getting from my solicitor is it’s out of their hands and that due to the “current climate” things are taking longer… I understand this but surely 18 month to get this sorted is a long enough time and my solicitor should have been pursuing this more.