Unregistered land

annel_2

We were due to complete last friday after weeks of waiting (offers and paperwork all accepted and started 7th march) but found out at the beginning of the week there was a problem with the garden of the house we are buying.

Only half the garden is on the deeds to the property - have had a search done and this piece of land (garden) is unregistered and does not belong to the property or to anyone else...??

As the owners have lived at the property for over 26years and have always believed this land to be theirs. Between our solicitor and theirs we have agreed that they apply for possesary title on this land and then we apply to register the land upon completion. Therefore ending up with two sets of deeds one the house and part of the garden and the other for the other end of the garden..!

Just wondering if anyone else has been in this situation or can give any advice on how long this sort of thing will take and are we likely to come upon anymore queries along the way with this sitution..

Our solicitor keeps changing her mind she has said 2weeks , then said 10days and now says it will be 2-3wks.. Today she told me 3-4wks before we can complete. She doesnt seem to know as she hasnt dealt with this sort of query before...?

We have also asked her to write down the process so that we have it on paper as still not quite sure what happens when and if there could still be any come back from someone else if they decided they owned the land but she seems to not want to do this...?

Captain_Mainwaring_2

You be careful, if the vendor has shown use for a period then they can adopt title, but if they seel to you then maybe the time will start again. I'd make sure you have good title before you exchange on anything.

Change your lawyer if she isn't competant to deal with it. What on earth has she been doing? she should have seen this before exchange??

Richard_Webster

There are two ways this can be approached.

1. Seller obtains Land Registry Possessory Title to the land and then sells that to you with the already registered area; or
2. Seller sells both areas but you apply for first registration of the area in question with Possessory Title.

The first one takes a little longer because the Land Registry may want to send a surveyor out etc and this could delay things for several weeks. It is safer, because at least you know the Land Registry accepts the evidence provided by the seller as to his use etc of the land over the 26 year period. If you register you can complete more quickly but your solicitor will have to make a judgement himself as to the quality of the evidence provided by the seller.

Whatever you do, there will be a short delay while the seller's solicitor prepares a statutory declaration which the seller will have to make describing his use of the land without challenge, payment to third parties etc over the period in question. This would need to be submitted to the Land Registry as evidence.

Also you should ask the seller to provide a possessory title indemnity policy to pay out if the real owner successfully claims that the Possessory Title should be removed from the Register. This rarely happens, but there are few unlikely reasons why it could, so a policy is necessary. At the end of a further 12 years if there have been no adverse claims etc you can apply to convert the title to Absolute, and then it is guaranteed by the Land Registry.

Captain_Mainwaring_2

I'd look to the half baked lawyer who didn't spy that you only got half the land to be paying for the costs in this matter....

I'm not sure how your building society would like this assuming you need an advance to purchase.

Incisor

Richard_Webster wrote: »

... Also you should ask the seller to provide a possessory title indemnity policy to pay out if the real owner successfully claims that the Possessory Title should be removed from the Register. This rarely happens, but there are few unlikely reasons why it could, so a policy is necessary. At the end of a further 12 years if there have been no adverse claims etc you can apply to convert the title to Absolute, and then it is guaranteed by the Land Registry.

While I would agree that this does require indemnity insurance, what is the remedy funded by the indemnity policy if the Possessory Title does not stick? That's an important question, because if in 11 years time, the indemnity is called and prices have risen by 1000's of % and the indemnity is worth say 25% of the original selling price, then the buyer might not be too happy.

Richard_Webster

While I would agree that this does require indemnity insurance, what is the remedy funded by the indemnity policy if the Possessory Title does not stick? That's an important question, because if in 11 years time, the indemnity is called and prices have risen by 1000's of % and the indemnity is worth say 25% of the original selling price, then the buyer might not be too happy.

It is going to be up to the buyer to make sure the policy is for an adequate amount. Lenders normally require the full present value of the whole property so given that it is garden land cover for that amount could well be sufficient to cover the loss in value because the garden ended up being smaller.

I'd look to the half baked lawyer who didn't spy that you only got half the land to be paying for the costs in this matter....

I'm not sure how your building society would like this assuming you need an advance to purchase.

Not sure I understand. Buyer's solicitor appears to have spotted the point, hence the delay, so why should he pay the costs?

Lender would normally be happy with a policy for reasons explained above.

Leedslad007

Captain_Mainwaring wrote: »

You be careful, if the vendor has shown use for a period then they can adopt title, but if they seel to you then maybe the time will start again. I'd make sure you have good title before you exchange on anything.

Change your lawyer if she isn't competant to deal with it. What on earth has she been doing? she should have seen this before exchange??

You can sometimes claim the land through "continuous use" of the piece of land, this could be an option, you could try for adverse possession or alternatively you could try and trace the owner of the unregistered land, we used a company called findermonkey.co.uk to do this but there are other companies/solicitors who do this, we also tried firstlocate.com.

Just because the land is not registered with Land Registry does not mean that it is not owned, it just means that the land is not registered with HM Land Registry. Hope this helps

FirstTimeBuyer_uk

We are in the same state. Our solicitor identified that a part of garden wasn't registered. We have heard from our seller solicitors that they have initiated the process. Any idea, how long it would take for the land registry to get back for the survey. We placed an offer in first week of April and its almost july. We are still waiting for them to get back. As we are first time buyers we are very much worried regarding the length of process. Any comments are welcome. Thanks.

Evilm

land registry normally take a few weeks to a month, perhaps a bit longer if its unregistered. I haven't seen one take longer than two months even for an unregistered title.

timmyt

can take a few days to two weeks usually..depends which Land Registy

FirstTimeBuyer_uk

Thanks for the reply. The property comes under England and Wales Land registry in middlesex. Is there any way by which the
seller's solicitor can track,when the surveyor might visit for survey, tentative date of finish and Registration date from Land registry. Do land registry tell these details ?. Thanks in advance. Any comments are welcome.