House not registred at Land Registry - Who is responsable?

mikiv

We have had our completion date 1 year and 7 months ago. We have been chasing constantly our solicitor for updates about our application at the Land Registry and we have been receiving very vagues answers of why this has not been done, until recentrly when we strated to chase more seriously. We have been told that they have submitted our application for registration at the Land Registry and they raised numerous requisitions with regards to the Deed.  Our solicitor says that the Seller covenanted to deal with any Land Registry requisitions, and our solicitor has been liaising with the sellers solicitor in relation to the amendments which are required to the Deed so that the Land Registry will register the same, but they are not responding. 

My questions are: Is the sellers solicitor really the only one responsable to deal with requisitons from the Land registry? And is there a legal term by which they are obliged to answer? 
Unfortunatelly I have not been told about the timelines: I don't know when the requisitions were raised and what these requisitions are, we are being kept in the dark by our solicitor. 
We now need to remorgage and we have a good re-morgage offer, however it is not possible to go ahead with it becasue our name is not registred at the Land registry. We will start loosing a lot of money when getting on the standard variable rate, and also miss on the opportunity to complete the remorgage offer that we got, and new remorgage offers will be much more expensive as the rates are going up constantly. 
We would really use any advice from the community. 
Thank you!

canaldumidi

mikiv said:

My questions are: Is the sellers solicitor really the only one responsable to deal with requisitons from the Land registry? No. Your solicitor should reply to the LR. But if the requisitions at issue require input from the seller, your solicitor cannot respond to the lr til he gets the replies he needs.

And is there a legal term by which they are obliged to answer?

you said "the Seller covenanted to deal with any Land Registry requisitions," so that is the legal basis on which the seller is bound to reply.

Unfortunatelly I have not been told about the timelines:

I don't know when the requisitions were raised and what these requisitions are, we are being kept in the dark by our solicitor. 

Have you asked?

We now need to remorgage and we have a good re-morgage offer, however it is not possible to go ahead with it becasue our name is not registred at the Land registry. We will start loosing a lot of money when getting on the standard variable rate, and also miss on the opportunity to complete the remorgage offer that we got, and new remorgage offers will be much more expensive as the rates are going up constantly.

If the issue is as above that the seller's solicitor is failing to uphold the covenant above resulting in your solicitorbeing unable to reply to the LR and hence get 1st registration of the property and hence your missing out on remortgaging then

* try instructing your solcitor to threated a civil legal claim for your financial losses

* once the replies are forthcoming, there will still be delay at the LR (lots of backlog) but your solicitor can request to have it expedited due to the remortgage.

mikiv

Thank you very much for your answer. Yes, we have asked numerous times what the requisitions were and when they have been raised, but no answer from our solicitor...

TBG01

Need more information on what the "Deed" is and who submitted it but anyways:

My questions are: Is the sellers solicitor really the only one responsable to deal with requisitons from the Land registry?

Depends. Depends what application the Requistions are for. Assuming it was the vendor Solicitor that submitted the "Deed" then yes, they can only deal with it because it was their client. If it's your application then your Solicitor can only deal with it but even then it might require help from the other side.

I don't know when the requisitions were raised 

Neither would your Solicitor. They aren't notified about Requistions raised on other applications 

and what these requisitions are

Again neither would your Solicitor unless the other side inform them.

canaldumidi

TBG01 said:

Need more information on what the "Deed" is and who submitted it but anyways:

Depends what application the Requistions are for. Assuming it was the vendor Solicitor that submitted the "Deed" then yes, they can only deal with it because it was their client. If it's your application then your Solicitor can only deal with it but even then it might require help from the other side.

OP said: "We have been told that they have submitted our application for registration at the Land Registry and they raised numerous requisitions with regards to the Deed. "

I assumed this meant the OP's (buyer's) solicitor aplied for1st registration afterCompletion,and hence the LR ('they' raised requisitions back toOP's solicitor relating tothe 1st Registration application.

If the seller had applied for 1st Registration that would imply Completion has not yet occurred.

TBG01

The OP has another topic asking about ground rent payment. So the property is leasehold which means the deed could easily be a lease extension or deed of variation.

Which wouldn't be out of the norm for the vendors Solicitor to submit. 

As I say it would be helpful if the OP could make it clearer as to what the deed is and who's submitted it because it's far too easy to blame their Solicitor for something that could be out of their control.

canaldumidi

Is the first time we've had a query here with insufficient information to offer helpful advice?

mikiv

Thank you very much for your answers, it's much appreciated. Indeed, it is a Deed of Variation (we had escalating ground rent and the deed replaces this with a fixed amount ) I understand the Land Registry consider this a new Lease.
I don't know who submitted it though - I assumed it was my (the buyer) solicitor. My solicitor has not been communicating properly, I am confused about what is happening, what are my rights and who and how do I need to chase

SiliconChip

I think you need to start using your solicitors complaints procedure.

TBG01

SiliconChip said:

I think you need to start using your solicitors complaints procedure.

They need to establish who submitted the Deed of Variation, but I'd put money on it being the vendors Solicitor as the deed would be between their client and the freeholder.

It's easy to blame the purchase Solicitor but they have no control over someone's else's application. 

mikiv

TBG01 said:

They need to establish who submitted the Deed of Variation, but I'd put money on it being the vendors Solicitor as the deed would be between their client and the freeholder.

It's easy to blame the purchase Solicitor but they have no control over someone's else's application. 

Thanks! We will find out who submitted the Deed of Variation. Probably the vendors solicitor, as you mention too. But what can we do to make them answer? It has been 1 year and 7 months already...