No Timelines for @HMLandRegistry to register land (adverse land possession). Chain is going to break (as well as my sanity)

[easy987us1]

This is my first post, so I'm hoping that its clear and to the point. I am in the process of buying and selling a home. My purchase was almost ready to exchange when we noticed that there was an area of land that we thought that we were buying but was not on the Title Plan. It turns out that this land is included in the sale, however it is unregistered. Our solicitors asked our Vendor to get the land registered with Land Registry and ask for the application to be Expedited. The timelines provided to us from the Land Registry were as below

 

10 working days for the application to be processed

10 working days for an ordinance surveyor to attend

A few days for the survey report to be sent to the Land Registry Lawyers

 

All of the above steps happened like clockwork, so I was so pleased. I had read somewhere that if the application is straight forward, then the Land Registry Lawyers should get it all registered within a week or so.

 

I spoke to a very helpful lady at the Land Registry a few weeks ago and explained to her that this is the only thing holding up the entire chain and that if I don't manage to get this resolved soon, that the whole chain will break. We suggested that I call back every morning between 8am and 9am to see if there are any notes on the case. I've been calling every day and there have been no updates. I received a call back from the Land Registry today (I assume it was someone a little senior) and they asked me (politely) to stop calling and that the case is being dealt with and could take anywhere from a week to many many weeks. If it is the later, then I can kiss goodbye to the house purchase and sale because no one will want to wait indefinitely.

 

I completely understand that these matters are complex however, the Land Registry have not sent anything to my Vendor or her solicitor. I am unable to speak to the Land Registry Lawyers to get an update. So for what seemed like a really decent process, we are now stuck feeling that we will be in the dark for potentially months.

 

The question that I have for anyone out there is that there must be some way of getting through to the Land Registry Lawyers and to simply ask them if everything looks ok or if there is going to be a significant delay.

 

Myself, my wife and my son are all sleeping on mattresses at the moment because we disposed of all our old furniture, thinking that we would be able to buy new ones when we are in our new house. Clearly this was a mistake and one that my wife is not going to let me forget any time soon!

 

Thank you in advance for any help or advice you might be able to provide.

 

[Ethel Street]

Welcome to CAG, and your first post here.

 

I can feel how frustrating this must be, it would drive me nuts too. I've no personal experience of this, it's not something I remember seeing on here before.

 

Hopefully somone here with some experience of this will be able to offer some suggestions.

 

[Andyorch]

Topic moved to General Legal Issues Forum.

 

Andy

[dx100uk]

as far as i know this is quite a common problem and we've seen it here before i'm sure

 

i believe the advice given before was for both parties to instruct their conveyancers to go ahead with the actual sale and sort out these little details afterwards.

 

i remember this happen to me 2008 and was resolved that way. it should not hold up the whole sale.

 

 

[easy987us1]

This was my hope but my solicitor wasn't keen on that route. 

[BankFodder]

We have just received this tweet in response to the automatic tweet sent out by your thread

Quote

HM Land Registry

 

@HMLandRegistry

·

16h

 

Replying to

@Real_CAG

@Real_CAG

We are sorry to learn about the difficulties being caused. If easy987us1 is able to DM us the application or property details we'll be happy to have a look at what's happening.

 

If you could send us an email to our admin email address with the details then we will pass them on to the land registry and hopefully they will look at it.
Please put "land registry details" in the subject line of the email

[easy987us1]

That is amazing, thank you so much for sending me this. I have sent an email this morning.

 

[honeybee13]

Well done the Land Registry and the power of Twitter. I hope they're able to resolve your problem.

 

HB

[easy987us1]

Fingers crossed. I will most definitely post an update to this thread as soon as I hear something.

[honeybee13]

Yes please, we like to know how people get on. Also, having a conclusion on your thread once it's sorted makes it a useful source of information for future caggers.

 

HB

[BankFodder]

I've received your email and I have just passed on your details to them by Twitter direct message.

Please keep us updated as to any progress – or lack of progress

[easy987us1]

@BankFodder you have no idea how much this means to me. If anything it's just given me a little bit of hope that this transaction might still be saved. 

 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart

[BankFodder]

They have just contacted me and told me that their record show that somebody has spoken to already .

Don't know if the matter has been resolved or do they need to have a look at it again?

 

[easy987us1]

HI,. thanks for the reply.

 

As per my post (which they clearly haven't read), I acknowledged that I had been contacted by Land Registry to let me know that there is no way of providing any update other than it would take a week, weeks or months (and to stop calling). That's my issue and what I feel is a bit unfair to all of us involved. No one in the chain is going to accept an indefinite wait.

 

I'll try to keep the chain together for as long as I can but they are getting pretty hacked off with me because they feel like I am fobbing them off. I'm feeling like I'm being made out to be the bad guy here and I'm feeling the pressure.

 

I'll update the post further, either we get some news from the Land Registry or the chain breaks...

 

Cheers

[BankFodder]

Quote

Hi. Thank you very much for the update. Please advise him that we will contact him directly to explain what's happening.