indemnity insurance - house purchase

[PlasticLentilWeaver]

I feel like I am being ripped off here, but short of pulling out of the purchase, no idea if there is anthing I can do.

We are busy selling one house to buy anothe. So far, we have been asked to take out three indemnity policies:

1. For house we are selling, to cover the absence of the lease being deposited with land registry in 1950's when it was changed to freehold. This was not picked up 10 years ago when I bought the house.
   
2. For some unspecified 'may or may not be' a problem with freehold of the house we are buying
   
3. Potential access issue with house we are buying. Private road, victorian house, statutory declarations in place covering last 50 years.
   

Would really appreciate views on this, as we really don't want to pull out over this, but it feels as if the solicitor is on a money making scam as we have never encountered it in 4 previous purchases.

Sorry for typos and odd phrases, mobile site not configured for my tablet and it's gone a bit skewy!

[digerd]

Sounds very strange. The house has probably been sold many times since 1950, and your gripe is with the solicitor who 10 years ago failed to find this discrepancy when you bought it.

If you don't believe this solicitor, you can always contact the land registry yourself.

1. I don't understand
   
2. Don't like the sound of that, if it is true.
   

Have you had trouble with this access problem and know about it?

[PlasticLentilWeaver]

The house we are selling has sold at least 3 times since 1950s. The indemnity for that is quite cheap, so have paid that rather than go and track down the previous solicitor and delay everything.

The second one, I don't really get either. Again, I think it is related to the road being a private one. The vendors have now agreed to pay that one so is no longer a problem from my perspective.

The access one. The vendor has been there 18 years, and the mother for many years before. There are statutory declarations showing that there is permissive access going back to about 1960. As I understand it, it is a simple case of it being converted to a right of access across the pavement outside the gate. Solicitor has done all the paperwork for this and says it is a negligible risk that it does not go through ok but still says we have to have insurance because we are taking out a mortgage. She has not been honest about the fact that this would only cover the legal fees to correct the problem in the unlikely situation that someone tried to stop the access, tried to say it would 'force' someone to allow us access. Noone has ever had a problem with access that we have been made aware of.

I have no doubt that there are situations where this type of policy is required, but these all seem so tenuous, and I can't help feeling that they are taking the pi$$!

[digerd]

So long as the vendors have been honest about any problems.

Did they not have to take out any of these things when they bought it 18 years ago?

[PlasticLentilWeaver]

No, because it was transferred ownership mother to daughter. There are about 40 houses along the street so I think it would be known about if there was genuinely likely to be an access problem.

We have copies of the declarations, so would probably have a case against the vendor if a problem turned up later, I'd have thought.

Hopefully solicitor is getting a second opinion on it now. It's probably just arse covering on her part rather than anything else. I was just surprised to be beong sold three similar policies across 2 properties having never had one beforw at all.

[digerd]

Good luck with it.

My friend fell in love with a run down property with 4 acres, years ago.
Then put her horses on it and later discovered it was a right of public way and the public were complaining about the danger of her horses!!

Just a section of the 4 acres, not all of it. All turned out OK though as she and DH had to fence off the right of way path to stop her horses grazing on it.