Renegotiation at 8 months after offer accepted

annetheman

Hi all,
I am looking for some advice as a buyer. I broke the chain 23 August 2024 and now living in temp accommodation with my furniture in storage, waiting for the Title issue which was first identified in June 2024 to be resolved by the seller of my onward house.

The issue
They are applying for possessory title of unregistered land which is approx 1/3 of the garden.

They first applied in July, this was rejected by the Land Registry due to sending the wrong documents for a first charge.

The applied again in August, this was cancelled by the Land Registry due to lack of response to a requisition (the solicitors have 10 days to respond or ask for more time, and they did nothing).

They are supposedly going to apply again, but I have kind of had enough and want to propose a new approach.

Proposed solution
My solicitor advised we can only proceed with the below if they have NOT applied, so we are assuming they haven't (I called Land Registry 3 days ago and they have received no applications yet):

I would like to ask the seller to give me all of their evidence and supporting documents for the application, and make my own application as the new owner. They are therefore selling me a property which has 1/3 less garden than when we agreed the price, and it will also cost me approx. £2,500-3,500 all in to apply for the Title myself (including creating new plans etc).

I would like to drop the price by £5,000. Valuer has not reduced the amount based on the Title issue (Santander are aware and were asked if I could proceed). 

I don't think it would be agreeable to deduct the value of the land 'lost' i.e. 1/3 of the garden, since I'm going to apply for Title for this anway. I just want my costs to be covered for the time taken and Legal costs to sort this out myself.

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If it is helpful, the price agreed was £365,000, going down to £360,000. Sale agreed 26 February 2024. Actually also the valuer's report said that without damp remediation, the house value is £360,000 but I still went ahead at the agreed price - see below:


Do you think this is reasonable?

Thank you for all opinions. I'm worn out by this purchase

EssexHebridean

What would you feel about the property if you were unable to get possession of the extra land? That's the key thing for me, here - if your enjoyment of the house would be wrecked by the smaller garden, then it's too big a risk. 

If the answer to that is that it would, then another approach it to tell the sellers you are willing to wait while their sellers try one more time to get the application in and through - that they should lodge it, then immediately expedite (with the impending sale being delayed as the evidence) and ensure that any further requisitions (they will need to deal with the previous one in order to lodge the new application) are dealt with swiftly. Give them a time limit after which you would withdraw from the sale if the title issue is not dealt with. Then sit back and wait. 

annetheman

EssexHebridean said:

What would you feel about the property if you were unable to get possession of the extra land? That's the key thing for me, here - if your enjoyment of the house would be wrecked by the smaller garden, then it's too big a risk. 

If the answer to that is that it would, then another approach it to tell the sellers you are willing to wait while their sellers try one more time to get the application in and through - that they should lodge it, then immediately expedite (with the impending sale being delayed as the evidence) and ensure that any further requisitions (they will need to deal with the previous one in order to lodge the new application) are dealt with swiftly. Give them a time limit after which you would withdraw from the sale if the title issue is not dealt with. Then sit back and wait. 

Thank you for this sage advice. 

The possibility of not getting possessory title of the land, even if it's small, is there and... I could live happily with the smaller garden. I could have just reached the end of my tether! But it really isn't a dealbreaker for me, I think.

I had given an ultimatum before, sorry that I neglected to mention that, and found out this afternoon after I posted this that it did work - it turns out they have submitted a new application, so the above is now our plan B.

Fingers crossed... Thanks