Missing conveyance and deed

vandy_06

Hello everyone, me and my husband are buying a house for the first time. We had a level 3 survey done and there were no major issues highlighted however, during the conveyancing process our solicitor mentioned they cannot locate a conveyance and a deed from approx 150 years ago. When we asked the solicitor to explain the issue to us, they are not being helpful with the details of it and have asked us to take an indemnity policy/ insurance. Also when asked for advice on should we go ahead with the property, they said it’s up to us and asked us to do our own research. 

My issue is we do not know what we have to do our research on if we do not know what the details of the missing deed are?

Our mortgage lender has approved our mortgage without looking into these missing documents. Is this the norm? 

What questions should we ask our solicitor so we can get an answer? Is there a lawyer here who can advise us? Should we take a second opinion with another solicitor?

loubel

They can't tell you what the Deed says if there's no copy available, but it may contain reservations or covenants against the property that could still be binding. Given it is 150 years old it would seem unlikely that anyone would be minded to attempt action against you if you inadvertently breach these. Insurance is the easiest way of dealing with this relatively small risk.

gm0

Consumer not lawyer.  Bought a rural property with complex title and cruft. Many deeds.

Title cruft exists with land division and redivision and access over, and utilities, private drains, water supplies all sorts of things.  Deeds made 50-100-150 years ago. Everyone involved dead.  Legal firms long gone as well in most cases

So a later document that you do have - refers to an earlier document in passing.  That you don't have. 
That earlier document has - been lost. And is to all intents and purposes unavailable to you, the seller or anyone.

Remember a solicitor feels they have to raise everything they find with you.  So that they can say "we raised it all with you for you to make your own decision - so we discharged our duties and are not liable under our services contract with you" over any loose ends or consequences or tail risks you choose to accept in buying a title. 

This is non-negotiable.  All solicitors do this.  They don't assume any risk onto themselves.  Nor do they tell you how to react to it which could also be a problematic action.

The indemnity policy approach covers the risk of legal challenge related to the lost 150 year old document turning up and saying something inconvenient.  Most such policies are really very cheap - which reflects the extremely low risk of the legal challenge risk covered actually happening.  i.e. someone benefiting from a long lost deed or some special covenants leaps out and trys to hold you to ransom in some way over something you are doing now.   It provides conveyancing gaffer tape (and a nice little earner on the side) for title cruft.  These policies don't insure you to put real world things right.  They typically insure legal defense against a niche challenge on some specific thing.

The way to think about it is from how it arose in the first place.  What document it is referred to in.  Context.
2nd legal opinions on a non existant document are a waste of your time and money

An indemnity is a common solution in such cases.

You will not get them to "tell you it is OK and take the risk of that being true".  It's not what lawyers do.

vandy_06

Thank you so much for your comments. Much appreciated. 
Even if we buy the property, I am worried about us being able to sell the property in the future with an indemnity insurance in place. Will the property be mortgageable for a future buyer? 

user1977

If it's mortgageable for you, why wouldn't it be for a future buyer?

I would be leaning on your solicitor to give you some actual advice, given that's what you're paying them for... 

vandy_06

user1977 said:

If it's mortgageable for you, why wouldn't it be for a future buyer?

I would be leaning on your solicitor to give you some actual advice, given that's what you're paying them for... 

When we asked the solicitor, they said the mortgage lender doesn’t need to know about this information.  

And when we asked for advice, they asked us to do our own research and then decide if we want to go ahead with the purchase which was not very helpful. 

gm0

You are a bit confused about two different risks. 

Houses and flats mortgageability is not some kind of holy writ you can check once and it will be definitively fine. 
Something they will lend on today.  They probably will lend on tomorrow. But they may not 20 years on - or only sub-prime lenders will but the main mortgage people won't.  If they are not valuing it at 0 and refusing to lend to you - this is a fairly positive indication.   But it *can* change tomorrow.  It depends what problems have come along.  And if they have had to reposess properties with loss of value due to a common feature X. Then as numbers grow.  They may stop lending on those or stick the price up. There is no compulsion to offer particular credit terms at a particular rate.

Cladding a recent example made some flats unsaleable.  Where leases exist - ground rent escalation became a problem - until this was legislated about. Some types of concrete higher rise flats with walkways I dimly recall became a problem after the early years of right to buy. 

When this happens after you bought without being aware of it. It is indeed bad.  A cash buyer limitation reduces the pool of buyers considerably. And depending on the uniqueness in other respects and location - may knock down prices.  You are right to be aware of this issue.  And for a very unusual property in structure or say a flat above a takeaway and such like - the risk of lending criteria changing - is more significant than for a bog standard brick and block and tile house - one of a hundred family homes like it nearby.

By contrast many properties have one or multiple indemnities for odd little paperwork things.  And in the vast majority of cases - this is a non-issue.  The risk exists.  Insurance for legal defense is taken.  But it is not material.
Someone paid £50 long ago for a strip of legal insurance tape for a paperwork glitch.

25 years go by and absolutely nothing happens - until the old paperwork and its policy are provided by seller conveyancer again to a buyer conveyancer.  That buyer - like you - needs to either

a) sort things into real and material risks vs close to irrelevant paperwork cruft  and proceed happily with their purchase

OR if they find coping with this sort of thing too unsettling

b) go and find something modern where paperwork cruft is less developed.  A newish estate in the era of current paperwork that people expect to see. 

As you have been told - a mortgage lender typically doesn't care to get into it at that level of detail beyond their valuer's report that the loan to value is acceptable in terms of security.  In some edge cases - like cornwall and radon surveys and such like - they will want to see a particular thing like that unique to an area  or construction type.

Green_hopeful

Is the property registered at the land registry? If so I would guess that the registered title refers to rights or obligations in the old conveyance (a conveyance is just an old document for transferring a property) and deed. It might refer to things you can’t do like operate a factory or other people’s rights eg lay a water pipe or your rights over neighbouring property. 

Your solicitor should provide a report on title explaining the documents that prove the seller is the current owner and any rights and obligations. Do you have the report on title. It’s normally a long letter. Perhaps if you post a snippet of the letter we might be able to make sense on it. Getting indemnity insurance is fairly normal for this sort of thing. 

There might be a copy of it on a neighbouring title at the land registry. If you find out what it’s called eg conveyance dated 7 July 1874. You can check neighbours deeds at the land registry. You can check for free and if by magic you find a copy you can order it from the land registry for £3. It is in a special part of the land registry search for other documents. I probably wouldn’t get your solicitor to look because it might be expensive in their time but I guess you could ask. 

If you go on the land registry website you can search for official copies. The second option is for other documents. 

Then you can see what documents they have.  You can see in this case the land registry has copies of two conveyances and a transfer from the 1930s. It’s because they are referred to in the registered title. Sometimes it will say no copy is on the title. But …. It might be on a neighbouring title.

Best of luck with it. 

user1977

vandy_06 said:

user1977 said:

If it's mortgageable for you, why wouldn't it be for a future buyer?

I would be leaning on your solicitor to give you some actual advice, given that's what you're paying them for... 

When we asked the solicitor, they said the mortgage lender doesn’t need to know about this information.  

And when we asked for advice, they asked us to do our own research and then decide if we want to go ahead with the purchase which was not very helpful. 

So repeat the request, point out that you’re paying them to advise you, not just shrug and leave you floundering around on web forums.

vandy_06

Green_hopeful said:

Is the property registered at the land registry? If so I would guess that the registered title refers to rights or obligations in the old conveyance (a conveyance is just an old document for transferring a property) and deed. It might refer to things you can’t do like operate a factory or other people’s rights eg lay a water pipe or your rights over neighbouring property. 

Your solicitor should provide a report on title explaining the documents that prove the seller is the current owner and any rights and obligations. Do you have the report on title. It’s normally a long letter. Perhaps if you post a snippet of the letter we might be able to make sense on it. Getting indemnity insurance is fairly normal for this sort of thing. 

There might be a copy of it on a neighbouring title at the land registry. If you find out what it’s called eg conveyance dated 7 July 1874. You can check neighbours deeds at the land registry. You can check for free and if by magic you find a copy you can order it from the land registry for £3. It is in a special part of the land registry search for other documents. I probably wouldn’t get your solicitor to look because it might be expensive in their time but I guess you could ask. 

If you go on the land registry website you can search for official copies. The second option is for other documents. 

Then you can see what documents they have.  You can see in this case the land registry has copies of two conveyances and a transfer from the 1930s. It’s because they are referred to in the registered title. Sometimes it will say no copy is on the title. But …. It might be on a neighbouring title.

Best of luck with it. 

Thank you so much. Your suggestion to look for neighbours documents is really helpful. 

Just a quick question, how do I get to request official copies as a non e-business person? Because the pictures you have mentioned in your comment needs me to login via an e-business services account with Land Registry. 

EssexHebridean

Ok - it’s not reasonable to request the solicitor to advise you on whether you should go ahead or not - that is about more than just the legal situation, for a start. You probably need to think about rephrasing the question - “is there anything that you can see which makes you feel we should think twice about going ahead with the purchase?” for example. 

Have you received the report on title yet? If so you need to read through it with all the documents you have been given to hand. Take each section in turn and be sure you understand it before moving on to the next. anything you are unsure about, make notes to ask the solicitor about.  It is also reasonable if the report doesn’t explain fully to ask exactly what the legal connotations around the missing documents are. At 150 years old and with a pretty that is already registered, it’s not going to cause registration issues, for a start, but it may well be as someone else says that conditions are created which you are expected to abide by, but that you can’t fully explore what is demanded of you. On the other hand, if indemnity insurance is available that will cover you for that, this need not put you off. 

The indemnity policy isn’t going to be a deterrent for future buyers, and as said if you have got a mortgage on it, there is no reason why someone else couldn’t. In fact there is a good chance that the indemnity policy which is acquired for you might even cover any future owners, too!