Freehold isn't due to solicitors mistake

xlt506

lfc321 said:

It's hard to follow, but from the above discussion it sounds to me like you own both the freehold and the leasehold - but the titles have not been merged. If you search for your house on the  Land Registry you should be able to confirm this: there will be two titles (one for the freehold and one for the leasehold). Download them and check you own both.

If you do indeed own both, then (even if not technically) in practice the house is essentially freehold and I don't think it would be unjustified to advertise it as such. Lots of houses are owned like this, usually when the leaseholder has bought the freehold but never bothered merging the titles. There is no ground rent to pay, no-one you have to get permission from to make alterations, and at the end of the lease it will revert to you as freeholder. In all but name, it is freehold.

Your buyers, if they choose, could merge the two titles during the conveyancing process - it wouldn't cost much to do so while they are having the other legal work done. You could even offer to cover the extra cost of this if that made a difference to getting your sale over the line. Or your buyers could continue to own both separately, which wouldn't cause them any problems.

(Sorry if I have misunderstood your situation - it wasn't very clear). 

No thats about right from what I can make of it, I will wait to hear further from my solicitor 

Land_Registry

The good thing is that you are using a solicitor to assist in resolving matters for you and you should rely on their legal advice/assistance and efforts as a result.
There are a few things that might help others understand the scenario you are facing though and add some wider clarity 
Leasehold properties will always have a freehold (or superior title) and often that's also registered.
Many leaseholders purchase their freehold at some point in time and may merge the lease back into the freehold to leave them with a single title/tenure.
Not all do often because the lease includes rights that would be lost if the lease was brought to an end (merged/determined)
When the two titles/tenures are in the same ownership and held in the same capacity a request to 'merge' them is always needed. If no request is made the two remain as registered. Not an issue and just two titles/tenures to deal with instead of one
So what's happened in OP's scenario?
They bought the property freehold but the conveyancing only included the one title/tenure. The freehold would refer to the leasehold title/tenure but a mistake was made in not including the second title/tenure in the exchange/completion/transfer it seems
OP does not mention how long ago the purchase took place but clearly longer than the 6 years quoted by the original solicitor re keeping the paperwork
The leasehold tenure/title therefore remains unchanged and is still owned by the named leaseholder (OP's seller) 
It's not legally owned by the OP until either the registered owner transfers it (as they should have done many years ago) OR OP claims ownership now - the solicitor appears to be using the second option and to register OP's claim as to ownership
No buyer is going to exchange/complete as things stand as the two titles/tenures are in different ownership. They could but that seems highly unlikely as OP/Solicitor are aware of the issue.
And even if the buyer did complete they would not then be able to merge the leasehold unless the issue is received and both titles/tenures are in the same ownership as mentioned
NOTE - OP refers to the form AP1 submitted at time of the purchase and whilst that will shine a light on whether the conveyancing error was compounded by HMLR as well it won't resolve matters on it's own. Form AP1 is the application form submitted and it's really the TR1 (transfer) form whereby the seller transferred the legal ownership to OP that really matters - if the OP's solicitor is going down the statement of truth/stat dec route then it seems clear that the error lies within the original conveyancing rather than HMLR has the correct AP1/TR1 but only updated the freehold title/tenure and the error was theirs
Hopefully OP's solicitor can resolve matters correctly and enable OP to move forward and ultimately sell the property

xlt506

Thankyou so much