Tyneside Flat Title Deeds Not Correct Solicitor not letting sale go through

Jude57

Iiyama said:

All helpful replies. I'm hoping to speak to my sons solicitor tomorrow for an update on his behalf. This discussion and opinions are all useful.

Son's solicitor is in the Tyneside area.  Interestingly the sellers solicitor has said that they are not sure my son's solicitor understands Tyneside flats! We shall see.

Thinking further on this, from the depths of my memory I've dredged up something that might be useful. Many Tyneside flats were originally built on land owned by the industrial giants of the period as homes for their workforce and as such the original leases were standardised. Subsequent sales of the freeholds of pairs of flats often followed the wording of those original leases so that the new Freeholder (usually the owner of one of the flats) became the Lessor of the other flat of the pair. It should be possible to find a copy of an original lease and examine it to see what the restrictions and duties of a modern Lessee would be. One large landowner was Carr-Ellison Estates. Another was the Vane Tempest family.

Iiyama

To close this off.

I'm grateful for all the replies. My reason for posting was to make sure I had considered all options to resolve this, including any the solicitor may not have thought of.

I need not have worried. The solicitor had it spot on with her advice. In the end my son has had no option but to withdraw from the purchase. The title deeds for the flat upstairs are missing and the sellers solicitor has failed to track them down. meaning my son cannot go ahead and purchase the ground floor flat. 

Even if he went to another solicitor who was willing to progress it by other means it would ultimately end up been my sons problem when he went to sell. As others have said in its current title deed format his lender would refuse.

Eventually the seller admitted to me that he has to take it off the market as my son has withdrawn. It may take years to resolve and a lot of effort.