Title deeds not matching the title register

[Ginosaji]

Is it possible for these two different documents not to match?

After the death of my mil, fil said that he had changed his will so that his portion of the house (there is no mortgage) will pass to dh & sil equally, so that they will then get 50% of proceeds from the house sale as their names are both already on the title deeds

Now 5 years down the line fil is getting remarried, and said that he wanted to change his will again so that his portion of the house go entirely to his new wife (fair enough) & said that he wanted both dh & sil to sign legal documents to say that they wont force the sale of the house upon his death, they had no intention of doing that anyway, but agreed if it gave him peace of mind

Last week though, fil rang to say that he realises that the only hope me and dh have of getting on the property ladder is with the money from the sale of this house upon the death of both him and his future wife, which could be many many years away, so he had come up with a solution

The solution was that future wife would sell her property (again no mortgage) and give both dh & sil a cut, equating to what they would get from the sale of fil's property based on current market value, but at the same time asked that in order for this to happen, he wanted dh & sil to sign paperwork to remove their names from the title deeds of his house, he said that this could all be put in motion after the wedding (which is happing in a few months)

Dh & sil agreed to this plan as it seemed like a plan that would suit everyone for various reasons, then last night fil rang again, and said that though he wanted to still go ahead with this plan, he wanted to make a small adjustment to it, future smil has a cat, which still lives at her property, apparently the cat is settled at the house & she doesn't want to upset it by moving it (cat is about 10 years old)

So fil's new plan is for dh & sil to remove their names from the deeds of his house soon and then when the cat eventually passes away, its an indoor cat if that's relevant, that property will then be sold as per his last plan and dh & sil given a portion on money from the sale

All this is now making no sense to me & dh, as it all seems rather strange, so this morning as i was really curious by now i went onto land registry and bought a copy of the title register for his property as none of this situation is making much sense

But according to the title register, the owners of fil's property are two people we have never even heard of! I guess its possible that these were the people fil bought the property from many years ago, but if the title register says they are the owners, how can the deeds have fil, dh & sil names on?

Sorry for the essay, its just that this is all so confusing & wanted to try my best not to drip feed

That’s very strange.

The title register should have been updated when your in laws bought the property.

The names of the owners will be shown on the register under “B. Proprietorship register”. Is that where you’re seeing the names you don’t recognise?

Yes @PalePinkSwan it is, it also has these names on the first page of the document where it says registered owners

Ok so that sounds like a cock up by the lawyers.

The title register is the document that shows the legal owners, so it’s important it’s correct.

The first step would be to ask your FIL - did he realise somebody else is registered as legal owner? It’s possible he does know this (eg he’s renting but wants the family to think he owns the house, I’ve seen this before).

Assuming he wants the register to show he (and whoever else) as the legal owner, he should find his deeds, in particular his copy of the Transfer Deed (which may be labelled as a TR1) and then see some conveyancing solicitors.

It’s the kind of thing that must be sorted out or it will cause all kinds of delays and issues when the house needs to be sold.

If you want, pm the scan of the register to me with names etc and I'll have a look at it for you.

@GU24Mum have pm you

@PalePinkSwan it wouldn't surprise me if this was the case, although then why the faff about removing names from deeds?

Fil loves to think he understands all things legal but I suspect he doesn't

Thanks - I've got your message and will reply via pm.

Im sorry for this but im an idiot in all the confusion of the strange plan fil is wanting to put in place, especially with the cat and everything, i realised after re-reading the registry document that id got the house number wrong

I went back on the website and did it correctly & sure enough fil, sil & dh are on the registry, so thats one worry out the way as at least i know no fraud has gone on

Now just got to get our heads around this situation with the cat

Ah well good it’s all sorted.

Must admit I don’t understand the cat business either!

We have to wait for the cat to die before we can get any money from the sale of the house as the cat is happy there and smil don't want to upset the cat by taking her to a new home, i.e fil's house while fil is insisting sil & dh take their names off the deeds to his house

Quite frankly a cat that is ten years old (and an indoor one especially) will adjust to moving house as long as the person who looks after the cat mostly is there too. If it was an outdoor cat I'd be more concerned that the cat would try and return 'home'.

No idea why your fil would want your sil and dh to take their names off the deeds now. Smells a bit fishy to me.

Totally agree @sunshinesupermum !

They are both retired, so would be able to give said cat lots of attention and company

As for the deeds thing, he never mentioned this before until last week, sil & dh have been on the deeds since 2014 after the probate was done with after mil's death in 2014, so I'm guessing her will may have left her share of the house to the two of them

To be honest if I was either your DH or SIL I wouldn’t be removing my name from the title deeds. By all means agree not to sell but in the scenario you describe if anything happened to fil they would lose what they had essentially inherited from their DM. The cat thing is ridiculous, the cat can move now. The cat could live another 10+ years. I’m a sceptic but would assume that once their names are off the title deeds they don’t see anything from the sake of the SMILs house.

Don't remove their names until they receive their paunent for their share. Ensure property is valued and they get market value.

Ginosaji Has your DH got a copy of his mother's will? If not he can obtain one and check for himself that he and his sister have been left her share of the house.

Best of luck!

If DH & Sil agree to transfer their shares of the property for no payment, it is quite likely they will never receive any payment.

Ordered a copy of mil's will last night, agreed about the cat, it's totally ridiculous! The cat could easily outlive fil who is mid 70's & not in the best health, and then we have to trust the woman he's marrying to do the right thing, which i don't believe she will

I don't think they should agree to remove their names either, as i believe they will essentially be done out of what was their inheritance from mil, even if the cat died tomorrow (not wishing the cat harm as its not their fault) fil is still insisting they remove their names before they can receive anything

It just dont sit right with me, even if the cat goes first, fil's proposed plan only really gives them a share of what would be their inheritance from him, it don't seem to include what would have been their inheritance from mil, of course thats hard to say for sure until I receive the copy of the will

Of course they could simply move to new girlfriends hose and sell FIL's so that SIL and DH get their inheritance from their mother now and of course the DCat doesn't need to be uprooted.

house not hose!!!

In an ideal world thats what would happen @sunshinesupermum , but his fiancée has decided she don't want to do that as his house is much nicer (it may be, I've never seen the inside of her place)

The whole situation is a nightmare, dh is to be best man at the wedding and sil isnt even invited

GF sounds very manipulative then. Oh dear.

Looking at this from the outside it very much seems that SMIL is manoeuvring things behind the scenes to ensure that she gets everything if anything happens to FIL. What’s going to happen to the cat??? Is it going to live in the house by itself?

She has her daughter living there rent free so the cat is looked after, tho the daughter is looking to move out soon so am guessing the fiancée will have to pop round daily to attend to the cat as its only round the corner

@celtiethree I quite agree! She was known to my mil, having started seeing my mil in a sort of professional capacity, mil was very into all the psychic stuff and this woman claims to be a psychic medium

My mil saw here a few times over the years for readings and the woman even visited my mil on her deathbed, fil has always been a staunch atheist and cynic and was always very dismissive of mil's belief in this kind of thing as well as her belief in god, now however he's changed his mind as apparently this woman has shown him that he was wrong and apparently she has communicated with mil who approves of their whole relationship

So she gets the will changed so that she is the sole beneficiary of FIL’s half. She gets the will changed so that your DH and sibling can’t even sell and get the benefit of the half that MIL left to them. And she DOESN’T give your DH anything, of any legal security whatsoever while her Dd and cat enjoy her own house?

Game, set and match.

Your DH needs to point all this out to his Dad.

I will tomorrow, i might also ring sil and speak to her, i just think its all very dodgy

Fil says that sil & dh will still be left a 6th of each house in his will (she has 4 adult children) but that would still mean the problem of wether or not she would agree to sell so that they can get their share of what their own dm left them in the first place!

And given that sil and fil have fallen out and he refuses to speak to her unless she opens her arms up to this woman and treats her like second mum it seems like this would be the perfect excuse for this woman to make sure sil gets bugger all

At any point he could decide to change his will and not leave either of them anything, which means that if they have taken their names off the deeds by that point they will have lost out on what their dm left them