Please help! Title deeds and postal address don’t match

Ash8765

Hello all,

I’m in the final stages of buying a flat but have been having issues with a discrepancy between the postal address and the address on the title deeds, which don’t match. My conveyancers have said all must match for the sale to proceed but the vendor has argued this isn’t a legal matter. The vendor claims that the property is registered to a different postal address out of convenience as the access to it is on a side street and that I can change this after buying it if I want to. Could I have some advice on this? Is this a problem? 

Thank you!

Sam_666

Well, you can follow advice of your solicitor, or follow advice of vendor and reap rewards  that come  with it.
Absolutly your choice. Dont think bank would go for your second choice.

user1977

Sam_666 said:

Well, you can follow advice of your solicitor, or follow advice of vendor and reap rewards  that come  with it.

Except the advice of the solicitor doesn't make much sense. It really doesn't matter whether the same property is called different things, as long as there's no doubt that everyone is talking about the same property - and as title deeds tend to refer to plans, compass point directions etc, the address is only of secondary importance.

gm0

Vendor likely correct.

Our house has at least three postal descriptions for the village it is in - before you get to What 3 words. 

The village it is in if you follow the road and look at the signs. Is different from the "postal" village it is in.  Is different to the one it is arguably "nearest to" and part of the historic parish and estate of.

You *need* to be clear about the title plan of the house you are paying for and that the mortgage company is lending on.  What it is called by the post office.  And what people have on various computer systems from sloppy account setups.  Is secondary. 

PAF not matching LR comes up a lot.  New builds (with plot numbers and developer addresses from before roads went in and such like. And older properties like my example

The key question to the solicitor is about the title plan.  Is the title plan clear and OK (the person selling and the thing being bought).

And proceeding

Asking the vendor to fix the post office before proceeding is utter nonsense.  My view is the solicitor should be ashamed of peddling this drivel. 

Or perhaps you have an inexperienced admin person from a low cost conveyancing farm and are reaping the rewards of this earlier decision influence by an estate agent to use them

gm0

On the other hand

If there is any doubt about the title plan being the expected land.  And the person selling your solicitor is working with as seller being the existing owner.  Then THAT is a huge issue.

Money may be exchanged for the wrong thing or nothing.  That IS worth getting excited about.

When you look at the title plan.  Is it the house. Location and site you expect.  Look at it yourself.  You have been to the place.  Your conveyancer has not

doodling

Hi,

What matters is that the plan associated with the Land Registry entry matches what you think you are buying.

Addresses on Land Registry entries are superfluous, to the point where I think they should be removed as they might mislead.

Your conveyancer should be able to explain why the address needs to match - let us know what they say because I don't think it matters.

Ash8765

Thanks all for your advice. I’ve looked at the title plans in the land registry and these match the property I have seen and have offered on (and is indeed owned by the seller) so from that perspective I’m confident that I’m buying the right thing. I also thought it was odd that the conveyancer was so confident that the postal address had to match as that doesn’t seem to me like a legal issue, but more of a logistical point. I will challenge them on this on Monday and let you know what they say.

gm0

This may (need to) trigger a conversation about "risk" and you assuming risk in proceeding.  And a fruitless discussion about what that risk (of the mismatch) might be.

The whole thing may be no more than the conveyancer raising the mismatch existing with you to prevent them assuming any possible liability downstream for not having done so - should something come up - in some fanciful contrived scenario where this caused you a problem later.  And you attempted to get redress from them.

It is entirely classic for conveyancers to raise all points with the client. So that once the client proceeds.  There is no comeback or liability on the conveyancer.  Work done. Fee paid.  Zero ongoing liability.  Good audit trail

Conveyancer incentive is to surface the relevant and the less so. And provide no opinion on significance/materiality of the issue list - beyond purely legal drafting aspects.  Selling you indemnity policies being a common extra step.

They are very shy about coming clean about what is trivial and what is not. 

Because telling you that something is trivial (and it not being so later) is exactly the problem they are solving.  Ticking off everything found in the paperwork as raised with the client.

Your incentive is obtaining good value help with specialist property purchase stuff - actual guidance. Their incentive is fees banked with no possibility of liability afterwards.  These are not the same.

I had one experience with a conveyancer where a property had a fair amount of legal cruft.  And a lot of it was in the category of "historic" and "it is what it is".  People dead. No possibility of easily changing any of it or redrafting it to suit modern points of view 50 years on.  The conversation shifted eventually from list making to one where the near retirement solicitor did have the quiet conversation with the inexperienced buyer that some people who want simple clean and recent title, lack of paperwork cruft on rights over, utilities, ambiguities - should buy new houses that are like that.  And buyers who can tolerate a level of (reviewed) cruft.  Can buy the other ones.   So which kind of buyer was I - implication - accept and proceed.  Or pull out. 

In the end it is your decision. And your risk. Not theirs.  At a certain point - all points raised and reviewed with you.  You can decide to pull out. Or decide to proceed towards exchange.   Provided their legal obligations - like ID and source of funds - are met (which they cannot skip) - the risks you take on board in proceeding with a transaction are yours to decide.

Ash8765

Thanks v much - it’s is really helpful and absolutely chimes with my experience with the conveyancers - I’m looking for guidance but they’re not telling me what to do, just raising it as a risk without explaining its importance. I went back to them this morning and they clarified that having the addresses match was legal best practice (so not a requirement as they had led me to believe). They confirmed that the sale can proceed but I’d have to sign a waiver (so as you said they’re just looking to ensure they are not held liable for any problems).

They said it could cause logistical issues or marketability issues in future (and I accept the point - if it’s an issue for me it could be for a future buyer). But from a common sense perspective it doesn’t seem like a big problem - the correspondence address is different to what’s on the land registry, that doesn’t seem so unusual given the access to the property is on a different street.

I’ve pressed the estate agent for a bit more reassurance on practicalities - has this discrepancy caused problems re electoral role, registering for banking, insurance etc

In the end I’m a bit frustrated that I’m being asked to accept some kind of risk rather than the vendor but part of me thinks it’ll be more inconvenient getting the vendor to change the address as I’ll probably have to change it back in future so that delivery people can find the place!