Solicitor's land registry searches post completion?

ce5656

Hi everyone, my purchase finally went through in early May and just when I thought I didn't have to deal with my solicitor any more (very bad experience...), I received two notifications from LR in late May and mid July because "there has been activity on the following property which you have requested a property alert notification". Both emails described the activity as "Search lodged by xxx (my solicitor's company name)" with my customer reference number.

I did register my property and the customer reference number is genuine so I didn't think too much about it but last week (over two months after completion), I received a similar email from LR except this time the activity is "Application lodged by xxx". What is all this about? Should I be concerned? And am I right to say that the application to register me as the new owner should be done within two months?

Many thanks!

Tiglet2

The activity mentioned in May and July would most likely have been your solicitor making an application to update the register with you registered as the new owner and the lender's charge on the title.  It's possible that Land Registry needed more information for the application in May and the solicitor replied in July.  Big backlogs at Land Registry to update titles, so expect to wait 4-5 months for an already registered title or 10-13 months for a new build or unregistered title. 

Your purchase is protected from the time the solicitor sent off the application in May, so nothing to worry about.  It's just a case of being patient and waiting for Land Registry to update the register. 

ce5656

Tiglet2 said:

The activity mentioned in May and July would most likely have been your solicitor making an application to update the register with you registered as the new owner and the lender's charge on the title.  It's possible that Land Registry needed more information for the application in May and the solicitor replied in July.  Big backlogs at Land Registry to update titles, so expect to wait 4-5 months for an already registered title or 10-13 months for a new build or unregistered title. 

Your purchase is protected from the time the solicitor sent off the application in May, so nothing to worry about.  It's just a case of being patient and waiting for Land Registry to update the register. 

Thank you! So all I need to do is to wait to hear from my solicitor when it's all done by LR?

These people are so incompetent that they forgot to send the Q2 service charges to the managing agent on my behalf (they collected the money on completion day so I guess they forgot to do that earlier!). And when they eventually did it in July (after I discovered my outstanding balance and contacted them), they failed to include the ref number so it took the managing agent a few more weeks to actually allocate the money to my account! Oh face palm...I have very little confidence in them as a result of all these incidents.