Buying a possible unregistered property

Millsandovis

Hi,

I’ve had an offer accepted on a property I absolutely love. The backstory is it was owned by an elderly couple who decided to sell up, sadly the gentleman’s health deteriorated and they sold the property to a we buy any car (but house) type company for what I assume was less than market value. It was on the market for a year (to the day) and started at 695 before coming down in increments to 575. 

I’ve managed to get it for under asking as it requires a lot of modernisation and the agents have agreed to take it off the market & a memo of sale has been sent to my conveyancers. It was being marketed by 3 different agents and it’s now off the market. 

When I’ve looked online to see if there are any title documents it comes up with ‘we cannot show you information on this property’. After having a quick Google and speaking to the LR rep on here it seems to be that this points to it having a first registration underway. I would guess this is from the company who have bought it off the elderly couple but not sure. I understand there’s currently wait times of 16 months but this can be expedited if there’s a sale. 

My question is this: what is the actual process around what LR do? I’ve bought the titles and plans for both neighbouring properties and there’s no easements or rights of way over the property I want to buy. 

Is it a straight forward process or is there a high chance of problems? Worst case scenario I’m thinking that if the elderly couple have either sadly deteriorated or sadly died and they can’t provide the original deeds for example. What is the process then? 

I only ask as I have had a few offers on my property and I am deciding which is best to go with. I have an offer 11% over asking (with a complete chain of 1 & high deposit) but a cash offer 8% over. 

I know people say cash is always king but in this scenario I’m thinking it may be worth me waiting and going with the chain if the land registry searches take a while. I want to move as soon as possible but if there’s going to be delays on my purchase then I may as well wait them out in the comfort of my home and my buyer can be sorting their purchase out in the meantime. 

pjs493

I have similar queries. The property I'm buying has been with the same family since the 80s and when I downloaded the documents from LR they don't actually match the property but instead some adjoining land so there's clearly an error somewhere. I think it's because the land purchase happened about ten years ago when the online system was up and running but the original purchase hasn't been lodged with LR. I'm worried that I'm going to end up getting stung for the first registration fee down the line.

propertyrental

Provided

a) the property's ownership history is complete (ie no lost/missing paper deeds) and

b) the seller requests LR to expedite, it should be fairly fast.

But if papers are missing it can take a long time to resolve

Millsandovis

propertyrental said:

Provided

a) the property's ownership history is complete (ie no lost/missing paper deeds) and

b) the seller requests LR to expedite, it should be fairly fast.

But if papers are missing it can take a long time to resolve

Thanks for reply. When you say long time you mean best looking elsewhere? I don’t really want to be getting involved in ownership disputes etc if I don’t need to. I’m hoping the company wouldn’t have bought the house or taken the stress of it all on if they didn’t have the deeds to hand but they could have just been thinking about the profit! 

Can my solicitors request the expedite or does it have to be theirs? 

propertyrental

Is the seller proposing to do a first registration before the sale? If so, you need not be concerned about an ownership dispute as you will be buying a registered property. It would be for the seller's solicitor to request the LR expedite.

On the other hand if the seller is selling you the property unregistered, then it would be for you to do the first registration. This could not be expedited since the transfer would be complete, so no rush.

However, it would be for your solicitor to examine all the paper deeds and reassure themselves, your lender (if any) and you as to whether it all looks in order, or whether you would be taking on a risk (eg some deeds missing)

Millsandovis

propertyrental said:

Is the seller proposing to do a first registration before the sale? If so, you need not be concerned about an ownership dispute as you will be buying a registered property. It would be for the seller's solicitor to request the LR expedite.

On the other hand if the seller is selling you the property unregistered, then it would be for you to do the first registration. This could not be expedited since the transfer would be complete, so no rush.

However, it would be for your solicitor to examine all the paper deeds and reassure themselves, your lender (if any) and you as to whether it all looks in order, or whether you would be taking on a risk (eg some deeds missing)

That’s what I’m unsure of, I’m lead to believe the seller has started the application of registering the property as the result you get when you search it on the land registry website is different to when a property is unregistered. That would hopefully mean they have some sort of deeds available I’m presuming. Would someone even attempt to register a property without the required documents or would it not be flagged until it finally gets looked at? 

I’m sure I’ll know more once I hear back from my conveyancer but it was just typical timing I didn’t get the offers in for my sale until half 5 tonight. I guess it could have been worse and been before the bank holiday though!

Thank you for explaining it so succinctly, I’d done a bit of research but having the process explained helps a lot.