Issue with Tittle Deeds

drnovell

I have a problem with my tittle deeds. Back in 2008 the Council issued 10 addresses for the flats. A few months later, the property lease was registered with Land Registry with a different address. In 2009 the freeholders solicitor told Land Registry to change the flat numbering which Land Registry did in 2010. In 2015 I purchased the property and started having issues. The utility companies thought I owned 2x properties. The council confirmed that I was in the wrong council tax band as the flat numbering had been switched. Even now I am receiving bills for another flat number and different meter. The leasehold agreement has a different flat number on it. The head of Land Registry Simon Hayes offered through his solicitors to produce a full report of what went wrong. At the time I agreed and said that it was going to be a whitewash. I was correct Land Registry decided to make up a new address for the property, an address I had not seen before. The ICR are refusing to investigate because they realised that Land Registry created a fabricated report. The other issue is that a Judge has ruled on the property that I purchased. Everyone agrees that that the property does not exist. The EPC that was used during the purchase was from a completely different street than the tittle deeds or what Council had issued. The estate agents fabricated the address on the memorandum of sale - made up an address. The financial ombudsman are currently investigating as my mortgage broker used the address that Council issued and my solicitor told the mortgage company to change it to the address on the tittle deeds. Unfortunately I am not holding out any hope that they can help as they can not even spell my name correctly! The mortgage company could not find the address so decided to make one up - different from the estate agents made up address. The solicitor also issued 2x certificates of tittle, each with a different address and one before exchange of contracts and one after. The SRA do not want to investigate as one of the solicitors was not licensed - only became licensed in 2017. This is because they decided to create a new solicitor firm and sell it to themselves for over £5 million in goodwill. The other solicitor closed down a month after I complained and opened a new solicitor firm. The evidence shows the solicitor who produced the witness statement became a director a day after the court served the court papers. The sellers were using a licensed solicitor firm but all the correspondence was coming from a assistant conveyancer who was not a licensed solicitor. She told the estate agent to advertise the property as a share of freehold when it was leasehold. Under the Land Registry Act 2002 schedule 4 Land Registry have the authority to correct a mistake but it does not give them the authority to correct a mistake with a mistake. Also Land Registry need the proprietors permission or court order which they did not have in 2009 or 2016 when they changed the tittle deeds. No AP1 forms were completed and no letter from the council was produced. In 2016 when Land Registry changed the address they have admitted that they used Royal Mail but on their website they say they do not accept Royal Mail only Council Street Naming. I have all the evidence including a survey report done for Land Registry back in 2009 showing the property description issued by Council, original registration, transcript of the full mortgage, companies house records, LinkedIn records showing the solicitors working for solicitor company even before it was incorporated, tittle deeds for both lease and freehold, Land Registry witness statement admitting that the description on the property is still incorrect, the 2x certificate of tittles, the letter the solicitor sent to tell mortgage company to change the address (my solicitor never sent me a copy at the time - I received it when I requested the mortgage company send me the full transcript), original letter sent from the freeholders solicitor to tell Land Registry to change the address, the original mortgage application, the terms and conditions for the home report organised by the solicitor, the Land Registry fabricated Report, and the courts transcript where the judge said what property I purchased. Any advice?

loubel

Your post is very confusing so I'm not completely clear what you are asking about.

It doesn't really matter what address the Land Registry have for your property as long as the title plan shows the correct land.

It sounds like your issue is that the council tax and utilities you have been paying are for the wrong property? The utilities should be fairly easy to fix by giving them the correct meter numbers for your property. Council tax you will need to speak to the council to work it out but again they should be able to resolve this as every property has a UPRN.

user1977

The OP has a previous thread from 8 years ago about (presumably) the same property, which is slightly clearer (though not sure which of the previous advice they've actually followed):

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5461201/negligent-solicitor/p1

drnovell

The property has a UPRN but that is not displayed on the tittle deeds. It would be great if there was one common identification on all documents that can be used to identify a property. UPRN only appears on council tax. Never seen it on a EPC or mortgage application or leasehold agreement. At the moment the only common linking mechanism is the address of the property.

The address is the only thing that links all the documents together. Land Registry use the property address allocated by Council as the description for the property. I was told by my solicitor what the correct address for the property was and this was the address on the tittle deeds and the contract. The solicitor used this to tell the mortgage company to change the address. 

The interest section is the Standard of Conditions of Sale where it states:

If any plan or statement in the contract, or in the negotiations leading to it, is or was misleading or inaccurate due to an error or omission by the seller, the remedies available to the buyer are as follows.

When there is a material difference between the description or value of the property, or of any of the contents included in the contract, as represented and as it is, the buyer is entitled to damages.

What happened in my case the solicitor did check the information but only with Land Registry. Land Registry knew what the address of the property was back in 2008 and 2009. Street Naming Department had sent a letter in 2008 which was sent Blue light services, building control, land registry, County Council. Land Registry had organised a survey report in 2009 which had the address of the property that Street Naming had issued.

I am happy to put the address of the property into the one the court said I purchased but Council are saying no. Its funny as all the evidence from the council was presented but the Judge dismissed it. Even the evidence where it says on their website

The other issue is from when the property changed flat number to when the council realised that the property was in the wrong council tax band, the council are responsible for issuing a refund. They are refusing at the moment as the issue wasn't caused by them, it was caused by the freeholder solicitor telling Land Registry to change the numbering and Land Registry blinding doing it when all the evidence showed that the complete address was wrong and Land Registry knew it.

Another interesting issue is NHBC. I can not find out which properties have NHBC as NHBC ask either for a policy number or address of the property. Some of the properties do have it but if they were issued before the properties were renumbered then the NHBC would move to another physical property. They have told me they only check the tittle deeds to check that you own the property. 

 

doodling

Hi,

Your post seems confused, but the starting point is that the land registry doesn't deal in addresses, they deal in land.  Land is NOT defined by addresses but by maps.  Any address you get on a piece of paper from the land registry means NOTHING and should not be relied on.

drnovell

 Any address you get on a piece of paper from the land registry means NOTHING and should not be relied on. Then surely solicitors would know this is the case. If this is true why did the freeholders solicitor tell Land Registry to change the flat numbering? Why did my solicitor tell mortgage company to change the address on the mortgage application? Why did my solicitor use the tittle deeds address to produce a HomeCheck Pro Report? Why does the TR1 Land Registry form say enter property address or description - it shows an example of a description? Why does the FR1 Land Registry form say enter address or description of the estate to be registered? Why would Council Street Naming Department inform Land Registry if Land Registry don't use the property address? Why did Land Registry change the description in 2016 when I contacted them about the issue? Why do Land Registry think its still incorrect?

Land Registry's argument is that its a description. My argument is that its a property address that Land Registry use as the description. The forms do not make it clear whether its a property description or property address or the property address used as the property description.

Also if the property description and the address of the property are completely separate then the Land Registry forms should have different boxes on the forms and should be able to enter either property description or property address. This would make it clear as to whether the information is a description or address. Another option is Land Registry should come up with their own description for the property and not use address or property numbering or post code to prevent confusion. Or all documents should use the Land Registry tittle deeds number including EPC, Council Tax or utility meters. For the lease it only shows the tittle deed number for the freehold so not clear which property it is associated to.

drnovell

Here is another update. As mentioned Land Registry deals with maps and plans. When the property was first registered in 2008 there were missing documents. So Land Registry raised a Requisition. It is not clear whether the Requisition issues were resolved because in 2014 the sellers solicitor wrote to Land Registry saying that there there were missing plans. 

The freeholder has decided to put a lock on a cupboard that appears on a lease. The problem is the lease says Flat 3 and the court said I purchased Flat 1. Who does the cupboard belong to?

theartfullodger

Paragraphs, spelling?  Tittle ? Look up the meaning of that spelling!