Land Registry

[Deleted User]

Does anyone know anything about the LR?
20 years after I inherited my house I've just recieved a letter from my solicitor recommending that I spend £576 registering my house, otherwise I might not be able to prove that I own it.
It's come as quite a surprise to find that I might not be able to prove that I own my own home, so I'm wondering what risk I'm running if I don't. I would have thought that the land registry must date back to the Domesday Book or something, but apparently it must be newer than 20 years old.

ariba10

Contact your local Land Registry office. (Google it) You will find they are very helpful.

If anything needs doing they will help you to D I Y.

anandp

The LR's online website also provides downloadable land registry records which state the owner of properties in England & Wales.

Charge is about £3 I think and is downloadable instantly.

Richard_Webster

Presumably this house is NOT registered at the Land Registry, which is quite possible in large areas of the country if OP inherited it 20 years ago.

If that is the case copies can't be obtained from the Registry because there is nothing to copy. Normally there will be a set of unregistered deeds which can be produced to prove OP's ownership when he comes to sell. The buyer's solicitor will then have to register for the first time.

Unless the unregistered title is very complicated, or there is some legally grey/marginal aspect to it, then I can't see much point in registering now - may be the solicitors don't have much work and are looking for something to generate some fees.

[Deleted User]

What puzzles me is the circularity in the solicitors letter. If I can't prove I own the house, how do I register it? If I can prove I own the house why do I need to register it? It's as if to imply that the registry's only criterion for proof of ownership is that there's currently no-one else claiming it. A bit like the passport office issuing a passport if the only proof of identity has been the fact that nobody else has applied for a passport in the same name!

The other frightener in the solicitors letter is the possibility of a boundary dispute. But here again, both the neighbours must presumably have been compulsorily registered in the last couple of years when they were sold, so the boundaries must already be defined on their registers. That seems to imply that the most plausible scenario for a boundary dispute could only be if some other third party were to try and claim ownership of a thin sliver of land between me and a neighbour. A very implausible sliver of land that would either have to pass down the centre of a shared drive, or through the middle of a semi detached house!!

The solicitors letter also seems to imply that the land registry uses large scale OS maps to define the boundaries more accurately than ropey old Title Deeds. But if no surveyors have been round to measure up the boundaries against the OS map, how do we know that the registration process isn't creating a boundary dispute rather than forestalling one???

Occasionally in the last 20 years I've wondered why the solicitor offered to keep my deeds in the strongroom without asking for a fee. Perhaps they assumed that I'd be selling before too long, and now their trying to contrive some buisiness in lieu of storage charges.

Richard_Webster

I've just recieved a letter from my solicitor recommending that I spend £576 registering my house, otherwise I might not be able to prove that I own it.

I would contact the solicitors and ask why the deeds that they have are not sufficient to prove ownership. Probably you will be told that it will simplify things when you sell. Yes, you might get charged a bit less for the legal work when you sell if the title is registered, but unless the unregistered title is amazingly complicated it is difficult to see how the difference would be anything like £576!

Spire128

Hi

I did my own convenancing on 4 properties that as it happens were all registerd with the Land registery.

However during the course of my research into how to do it I found out that if a property is not registered with the Land Registery then if your name is on the Title Deeds and your title has not been disputed in the last 11 years then then that is considered satifactory proof that you own the title to the property.

I would point out that I am a layman with respect to law so I woukd advise that you confirm what I have said with a solictor before you take any action.

minigirl

The title deeds that your solicitors hold will prove that you own the property however your solicitor is probably refering to a compulsory registration which the Land Registry are insisting on lately. I think £576 is extortionate for the work involved and would either try and register the property yourself with the Land Registry (using a form FR1) or go elsewhere for a quote. When registering the Land Registry if the Land Registry feels the boundaries aren't defined enough in the title they will then send out a surveyor in order that they can prepare a OS plan.

With regard to charging more when selling as the property is unregistered, this isn't the case at the solicitors I work at and besides, it it the purchaser's solicitors that will have to register the land after completion.

terryw

jack_pott wrote: »

What puzzles me is the circularity in the solicitors letter. If I can't prove I own the house, how do I register it? If I can prove I own the house why do I need to register it? It's as if to imply that the registry's only criterion for proof of ownership is that there's currently no-one else claiming it. A bit like the passport office issuing a passport if the only proof of identity has been the fact that nobody else has applied for a passport in the same name!

The other frightener in the solicitors letter is the possibility of a boundary dispute. But here again, both the neighbours must presumably have been compulsorily registered in the last couple of years when they were sold, so the boundaries must already be defined on their registers. That seems to imply that the most plausible scenario for a boundary dispute could only be if some other third party were to try and claim ownership of a thin sliver of land between me and a neighbour. A very implausible sliver of land that would either have to pass down the centre of a shared drive, or through the middle of a semi detached house!!

The solicitors letter also seems to imply that the land registry uses large scale OS maps to define the boundaries more accurately than ropey old Title Deeds. But if no surveyors have been round to measure up the boundaries against the OS map, how do we know that the registration process isn't creating a boundary dispute rather than forestalling one???

Occasionally in the last 20 years I've wondered why the solicitor offered to keep my deeds in the strongroom without asking for a fee. Perhaps they assumed that I'd be selling before too long, and now their trying to contrive some buisiness in lieu of storage charges.

Solicitors like to keep the "deeds" as you are likely to go back to them when it is disposed of.

The LR themselves are dead keen for owners to voluntarily register land and there are several good reasons for you to do this.
1. Once the land is registered the government effectively guarantee that you are the owner.
2. When the land is disposed off the solicitors costs WILL be less if the land is registered
3. I do not for one moment think there is some boundary dispute but by registering, any such thing is likely to come to light.

Here is a link http://www1.landregistry.gov.uk/register_dev/voluntary/

The LR staff are incredibly helpful and I think it would be a good idea to pop there (if it is reasonably local) hand over the deeds and the form for them to check over.
The fee for registration is only £40. A darned sight less than your solicitors charge!It normally just takes a week or so for the LR to check it all over.

The history of the LR is quite fascinating. When it was first thought of n years ago it was realized that it was impossible to do overnight, so at various times various areas became subject to compulsory registration when ownership changed. Now the whole country is covered but there are still properties like your own which do not need registering until it is disposed of. It makes sense, even if just for tidiness to take advantage of the voluntary scheme. At some time in the near future the LR will have to look at compulsory registration of the remaining land........there will be some fun and surprises here!

terryw

terryw

Spire128 wrote: »

Hi

I did my own convenancing on 4 properties that as it happens were all registerd with the Land registery.

However during the course of my research into how to do it I found out that if a property is not registered with the Land Registery then if your name is on the Title Deeds and your title has not been disputed in the last 11 years then then that is considered satifactory proof that you own the title to the property.

I would point out that I am a layman with respect to law so I woukd advise that you confirm what I have said with a solictor before you take any action.

Good for you doing your own conveyancing. I started doing this 40 years ago when it was possible to save a fortune on the disgusting levels of solicitors fees. Nowadays it is only worth DIY if you are buying or selling with no mortgage involved. This is because:
1. You still have to pay the lenders' solicitors fees, and a cheap and cheery solictor will do the whole job for about the same.
2. The solicitors' obscene monopoly has been broken and competition has brought fees down to a reasonable level (apart from the solicitor's who have contacted the OP!)
3. It used to be the case that a bank draft was handed over at completion but current contracts make this very difficult as one solicitor acts as an agent for the other in paying off the old mortgage which the layman can't do.

Anyway, the odd guy doing a bit of DIY keeps them on their toes.

bw

terryw

[Deleted User]

Regarding the fees, my solicitor says the LR fee is £220 for properties between 200k and 500k, but to encourage voluntary registration there's currently a 25% discount to £165. Her fees are also discounted from £450 +vat to £350 +vat. Assuming 17.5 % vat that's a total of £576 now, or £749 later. The LR website also says £165, so where did the £40 come from? As the fee depends on house price do I also have to pay for a valuation?

As far as boundary disputes go, the neighbours must already be registered, so if there's a discrepancy between the deeds any attempt to register my property will precipitate a dispute (and a load of extra legal fees?) rather than avoid one. It seems to me to be better to let sleeping dogs lie, unless terryw is right and they're about to make it compulsory anyway....

If I take the deeds to another (cheaper?) solicitor, might I not then incur a charge for re-storing the deeds afterwards?