Unregistered Property

[TheFantasticFixit]

Hi all - we are buying an older property and a few weeks in, the vendor has only just revealed that the property is unregistered (with land registry). Paperwork has only just been ‘found’ and handed to their solicitir for draft contracts - it’s infuriating to say the least.

During their ownership, they have built onto the back of the land (where they now live), creating a shared accessway (Drive) for both their house and ours, and obviously created new boundaries for both properties.

Having done a bit of digging, it seems it’s a bit of an all or nothing situation - it’s either fine and runs smoothly, or becomes a bit of a mess that takes months to sort out.

Has anyone had any experience with this?
How much delay can we generally expect?
Does this affect our mortgage offer in any way?
There’s an increase in cost for us - has anyone managed to get the seller to cover those?

My dad’s house wasn’t registered with the land registry and it didn’t cause any problems when we sold.

They can register it easily. Problem solved.

Beware of a shared drive. Recipe for arguments: use, parking, maintenance. I would avoid.

There is an increase in cost because your solicitor has to do more work with an unregistered property compared with a registered property. This is why quotes for conveyancing are not always accurate at the beginning because the solicitor doesn't yet know what the transaction will entail. You can't pass this cost on to your sellers, but if the sellers were to get the property registered before you exchange on the purchase, then the cost will be theirs, but you would have to seek advice from your solicitor to see if this possible within the timescale.

There was no legal obligation to register a property with Land Registry until the 90s I think, so before that your deeds were held at the bank/solicitor etc. Nothing to be infuriated about.

Doesn't take long to register the property if the paperwork is in order, and only took a month with mil playing silly buggers once we had solicitors involved.

Your property will be registered by your solicitor following the transfer of property to yourselves. As mentioned above, fees can often be higher because the solicitor generally has to do more work when the transaction involves unregistered land/property. In very basic terms, prior to the LPA 1925 no land was registered in the U.K. and absolute title was only possible if there was a “good root of title” (generally 3 successive transfer deeds clearly stipulating the demise).

Post registration anything burdening or attaching to the property was generally on the property’s registered title so a copy of the “Office Copy Entry” (ie title register for the property) serves as a single source of pretty much most of the information a solicitor needs to determine title and any encumbrances. Hence it’s less work and can be done faster.

Not to mention that some old deeds were handwritten, are faded, etc and can be slow just to read through.

Given the nature of transferring unregistered title and the work involved, it does take longer but how long really depends on the availability of the documents and, as is often the case with residential transactions, the conveyancers themselves. Good luck!

Our property wasn't registered - 1 owner since it was built in the 70's.
We insisted they register it first, which delayed the sale but there were no issues at all. They had also had extensions but had all paperwork relating to planning permission as well as original deeds

Don't worry too much - unregistered isn't the same as "undocumented" . It sounds as though you're buying from someone in one of the last compulsory registration areas. They will have owned the property for a while so unless they've lost the docs, it shouldn't be a huge problem - it will take bit longer for your solicitor to check the title and more fiddly to register but not a problem per se.