Land not transferred by solicitors

madteapot

Sorry I'll post this again, you keep mentioning that seller's solicitor mentioned second plot/title in the PIF but this is pretty weak argument to be honest. The section you posted about PIF isn't really telling they are selling you two plots of land. It is telling that the boundary is unusual and that the seller bought neighbouring plot. Also keep in mind PIF isn't usually completed by sellers solicitor it is completed by the seller. Their solicitor might have checked it or they might not have and simply forwarded the form to your solicitor. Your solicitor should have definitely reported or mentioned this to you to check if you had any queries on that section. But that section in PIF does not mean they are selling two plots or you are buying two plots. 

At any point in the transaction did seller or their solicitor give your solicitor two title plans and tell them explicitly that the sale is for two titles? The draft contracts are prepared by sellers solicitor, did they include two titles in that? And lastly the main piece of paper work is TR1. TR1 is a form that is signed by seller and buyer and it lists all the title numbers included in the transfer as well as the amount paid. TR1 should have been checked by the sellers solicitor as well as your solicitor to confirm that all the titles in the transfer are included. If your solicitor never knew about two titles they might have not given it too much attention but if seller and their solicitor actually were selling two titles why didn't they say that the TR1 is wrong . 

jabbabroadley

Understood even though there’s a hint of two plots in the PIF, you are saying this is irrelevant. The TR1 Form only provides one plot, therefore the sellers solicitor did not provide the information to ours.

I think you are saying that the sellers solicitors have been negligent, if of course the seller provided that information, which it is clear that they have as its in the PIF.

Bendy_House

jabbabroadley said:

By me, it’s our garden and was fenced off as part of the sale when we viewed, it was in the estate agents floor plan

Ah. Thanks.

I'd assumed you hadn't received the extra part, were not aware you should have, and were only recently informed that it 'should' be yours!

DE_612183

Push the solicitors for half the costs - better than nothing

jabbabroadley

From the useful comments on this forum, we realise that:
- we will have to pick up some of the tab. But will try to reduce it.
- try to improve the deal offered by our solicitors 
- try to engage sellers solicitors to take responsibility and cover cost
- use our home insurance to cover some cost 

Bendy_House

jabbabroadley said:

The below is exactly the solicitors comments 

There is no mention of two plots from our solicitor 

The sellers solicitor provided details of the two plots in the property information form ( details above on thread) however didn’t explicitly state that they required to be transferred by our solicitors. Just that they had been transferred to new address, which you cannot do with land as it has to transferred to a person or a company.

it appears within the contract the sellers solicitors did challenge or mention the additional plot. The only information we are aware of from the sellers solicitors to ours about the two plots is in the PIF.

Rats. Ok, your other reply - confirming that you DID always believe/know the yellow land was yours, and HAVE been using it as such - might make it less clear-cut as to who's to 'blame'.

Had you not known the yellow bit was yours, and had you not been using it as part of your garden, and it was only just brought to your attention - "Hey! Why aren't you using that part too?! It yours, you know!" - then I think you could legitimately dump all the blame on your conveyancer since they only showed one area edged in red, and asked you to check only that area. They made no reference to the 'yellow' part. Ie, your ignorance of the situation would have been entirely down to them.

From your earlier posts, I'd read the situation as being that you hadn't received this extra piece of land, never considered it was yours, and were happy in your smaller triangular garden. In which case I think I'd be safe in saying that your conveyancer made 'the' error by referring only to the red-edged plot, and providing a plan showing only that triangular plot. You could legitimately claim that the 'yellow' part just didn't register with you as potentially being part of the purchase because of their instruction.

However, it transpires that you did always consider the yellow area as part of the overall plot, were presented with dodgy/vague plans from your conveyancer - along with a half-assed instruction to check the 'red boundary' - but you unfortunately didn't twig that the yellow part wasn't also edged in red, and so you didn't make the effort to question your conveyancer - as you should have? :-(

I don't know what happens now - sorry. It would certainly feel unfair if the whole onus was on you, just because you didn't check what was a lapse by your conveyancer. 'Cos surely a lapse it was? Careless at best.

Tiglet2

jabbabroadley said:

Understood even though there’s a hint of two plots in the PIF, you are saying this is irrelevant. The TR1 Form only provides one plot, therefore the sellers solicitor did not provide the information to ours.

I think you are saying that the sellers solicitors have been negligent, if of course the seller provided that information, which it is clear that they have as its in the PIF.

No, not irrelevant, but as madteapot has said several times, it did not specify that the property you were buying consisted of two parcels of land.  It is normal for transactions to consist of one parcel, i.e. one title number.  If the sale to you was a Transfer of Part (TP1), then the entire plot should have had a red outline around it.  If the sale to you was as two Transfers of Whole (TR1), then the entire plot should have been sold as two sales, i.e. plot for the land with the house on it and plot for the additional land.  It doesn't sound like the seller explained the specifics of his sale to his solicitor, his solicitor therefore did not relay this to your solicitor and your solicitor carried out the conveyancing for one plot, the one you now own, as that was all they were aware of.

If you have copies of the documents you signed, what exactly does the Contract state you are purchasing?  What does the Transfer (TP1 or TR1) document state you are purchasing?  The TP1 or TR1 is uploaded to HMLR Registry after completion so that the Land Registry can update the title.  If the TP1 or TR1 did not include the other plot of land, then HMLR would not update the title to show you as the owner.  

wilfred30

jabbabroadley said:

They said “Without Prejudice”, what is the relevance of this?

What is a without prejudice offer?

In general, a party's admission to something can be used against them in court. The without prejudice (WP) rule means that statements which are made in a genuine attempt to settle a dispute cannot be used in court as evidence of admissions against the party that made them.2 May 2022

Therefore, if you reject their offer of around 25% contribution to the cost, their offer cannot be used against them if you took them to Court.

To be honest, I think that all three parties are at fault - the seller's solicitor, your solicitor and you.  

Having provided the two different Title Numbers to your solicitor, they did not include them both in the TR1.

Your solicitor did not apparently query it and you didn't check the Title Plan as your solicitor had asked you to.  They specifically asked you to inform them straight away if the Plan did not correspond to what you were buying, which it obviously didn't.

You can of course try to get your solicitor to increase their offer but, if they refuse, you will probably have to accept it as is rather than take them to Court with no guarantee of success.  That's just my opinion of course!

ETA:  You could of course go after the seller's solicitor as well to make a contribution to the cost.

madteapot

jabbabroadley said:

Understood even though there’s a hint of two plots in the PIF, you are saying this is irrelevant. The TR1 Form only provides one plot, therefore the sellers solicitor did not provide the information to ours.

I wouldn't say it is totally irrelevant, I would just say it doesn't give you enough ammunition/argument you think it does to claim against your solicitor.
Should your solicitor have mentioned or explained them to you? Yes in your situation I would expect the my solicitor to say something to me about it i.e. "Hey are you aware seller owns the neighbouring title, are you buying them together or just one? Do you have any concerns that the sellers will keep ownership of neighbouring land, etc.".
Should your solicitor have raised queries on the back of those answer to clarify the technicalities of them? For example as you already mentioned all those three answers mention "to <new address>", technically this is not possible as the land/title can not be owned or transferred to another address only to person or company. 
They certainly could have done more the clarify the answers in these two aspects but does that result in full blame being assigned to them? most likely not. 

jabbabroadley said:

I think you are saying that the sellers solicitors have been negligent, if of course the seller provided that information, which it is clear that they have as its in the PIF.

No I am not saying sellers solicitor have been negligent. Again seller's solicitor does not visit the site to check what is being sold. They generally have no reason to check every material fact in PIF; that is buyer's solicitor's job. Seller's solicitor can and will answers queries raised from PIF but only if there are queries. They rely on the seller telling them I am selling address xyz and based on address they generally lookup title number. If the seller told them I am selling house no x, street abc then they have no way to know there are is second title. Did seller think just because they bought the neighbouring plot now the sale will automatically include both? In which case could have been fully ignorant, does that translate to them being negligent and fully liable for costs? I don't know, may be or may be not

Part of the blame in any case will lie with you, you solicitor asked you to check the red boundary from title. You could have just casually mentioned saying you know the fence on this one side looks few meters away from the house wall then it seems in the title. Or even just seeing the neighbouring property, the red boundary shows you only have one neighbour at left and front (or is that back); but in reality and on the ground you have two neighbours one at the left and other at the diagonal fence. These are the things you could have paid attention to or asked for clarification. Some people will say it is 100% your fault some will say may be 25%. 

My advice for you; your solicitor already offered to pay 25% so they probably know there are things they might have missed. I suggest instead of pointing fingers directly at your solicitor work with them to try and find a solution. Try to figure out if apart from the PIF has seller's solicitor ever mentioned two titles? If they did push for more costs from your solicitor. If they didn't then push to seller's solicitor through yours to clarify why they didn't sell two titles when on the ground they are. They might try to shelve the responsibility to the seller but that again will have to be done through your solicitor. If the person who dealt with your transaction isn't responsive you might have to raise official complaint and work with a senior partner to find solution. The best outcome in this scenario is for all four parties to share the costs. The worst case; the seller and their solicitor doesn't play ball and you have a possible litigation claim against them. Getting perspective on how much you want to pay in litigations claim (could be low to mid five figures) vs how much is the cost (four figures) as it stands to obtain the title from crown will help you make decision.

lincroft1710

wilfred30 said:

jabbabroadley said:

They said “Without Prejudice”, what is the relevance of this?

ETA:  You could of course go after the seller's solicitor as well to make a contribution to the cost.

OP has no contract with seller's solicitor, so is not really in a position to expect them to contribute to his costs.