Deed of variation on leasehold flat shared area in conveyancing - experiences?

bluescrubs

We are in a chain, we are fourth from the bottom. When we accepted the offer (first week in April, needing to hurry to be exchanged ideally by early june for school places) the chain below was pretty progressed as they had been waiting for the people buying ours to find something. We said we would sell regardless as moving area. Everyone happy with dates, etc.

Everything progressed okay initially. The bottom of the chain dropped out, but buyer replaced within a week, and after some small delays looked like we were approaching exchange end of June, including on our purchase. Then, we start hearing rumblings about needing a deed of variation on their lease as it’s an upstairs flat and they don’t formally have rights over the stairs (apparently).

Four weeks later and this hasn’t yet been agreed or submitted. We are constantly told it’s nearly there. We have been told once it goes to the land registry turnaround is 10 days, but that seems difficult to corroborate in public information. Communication in the chain is rubbish - our seller’s EA seems to get the most from the bottom of the chain, but it’s still patchy and often downright false.

We are now in a genuinely tricky situation as we need to be in situ in September. While this is all happening house prices have continued to rise where we are selling, and fall where we are buying. We can’t afford to rent and wait, not least as we would have to rent for a good old period to get a school place allocated; instead we would pull out of our purchase and, as we had lost faith, need to relist our house too. We therefore think we might have to crash the whole transaction if it’s not exchanged by early September so that we can rent in the new city.

Any experiences of deeds of variation like this and how long they take for the land registry to turn around?  Any advice welcome. 

silvercar

If all the paperwork is in order and a sale imminent, @Land_Registry can confirm, but the general advice is things can be registered within 10 days. It does rely on all the paperwork being in order and submitted, then a separate request to expedite due to imminent sale.

Land_Registry

silvercar said:

If all the paperwork is in order and a sale imminent, @Land_Registry can confirm, but the general advice is things can be registered within 10 days. It does rely on all the paperwork being in order and submitted, then a separate request to expedite due to imminent sale.

Submit application first. Request expedition second. Expedition generally means the application gets to the processing start line within the 10 days you refer to. It is not though a 'magic wand' to completion as everything then depends on the application being all in order and capable of being registered against both the leasehold and superior title/freehold as appropriate
Worse thing everyone can do when someone says it's been expedited is to then say it will be done in 10 days. The race to the registration finish line can start within 10 days but how long the race is will often rely on far more than just expediting it

JM68

As far as I understand it (and we had to do one to sell our flat) there is no 'general right' to a deed of variation. The leaseholder has to get the freeholder to agree, and normally the freeholder names their price (premium) to agree it, or can simply refuse if they wish. Do you know if the deed/premium has actually been agreed and the delay is just doing the legal paperwork etc. or is it possible they are still negotiating? If the latter, there is no guarantee it will actually be agreed and you may need to consider your options in that scenario.