Problem with land registry before exchange.

[Stephplus2]

Hi would love some advice if anyone can help!!

We are in the process of selling and purchesing. We thought we were close to completion then the vendor of the property we are purchasing from says someone needs taking off the land registry an ex partner that got payed off 10 years ago.

This has been going on for 6 weeks between solicitors and today I found out they are waiting for permission from the lender then they can submit an application to take the person of the land registry before we complete.

Does anyone have experience of this and how long it could take? I have been told it can be fast tracked but would like to know how long were looking till this issue is fixed. We are in a rush as our children are due to move schools and my buyer is about to give birth!

We are in a chain of 4. One being a first time buyer then my buyer and me then the house we are buying is a vacant ex rental.

Thanks!

Not exactly the same situation, but family member is selling probate property that has needed some legal agreement and the lender is taking AGES to deal with it, it's been 2 months already despite their promises they are looking at it.

Yes, you can expedite at the LR, the solicitor advised around a 6-8 week turnaround time, although there was a thread on here recently someone else had managed at 10 working day turnaround.

Thank you for your reply.

10 day turn around is litrelly what we need. We can't wait 2 months or our buyer could pull out. God knows why this didn't get sorted 10 years ago!!

Thank you x

Hope you get it sorted quickly!

My family member is lucky the buyer is someone they know who is happy to wait however long it takes. If it had been any other buyer they would have probably long gone!

Are the sellers solicitors holding signed documentation from the ex partner, confirming that they have been paid off, and that they agree to be removed from the deeds? In other words, is there evidence for all this, or is this just what the seller is saying?
Your solicitor is presumably on to this, but who knows how long it will take.
If the paperwork is in order, then it's a question of the Land Registry processing it, and I gather they have quite long delays at the moment. If it's a question of actually getting the ex to sign the appropriate paperwork, then it will take longer.

The LR expedition can only happen once all the correct paperwork is in their hands.
I think you'd be very lucky to be able to complete this within 2 weeks.

Me too. I am getting very frustrated as this has been going on for weeks with no change and the solicitors are like children and can't have an actual chat about resolving it!!

Thanks x

It's pretty bad form for you that no-one has
told you this til now as it should have been obvious on Day 1 of the contract coming over that there was one seller but two owners.

As a PP has said, in order to get any idea
about timings you need to know if the docs are signed and with the lender or whether the lender is only the first step.

Assuming you get all the docs and the relevant solicitor lodges the application quickly then the Land Registry might not be as bad as it could be. There are definitely backlogs at the moment but they tend to have easy, medium and hard
piles and only work up to the hard piles if they've run out of easier things! This should be in the "easy" pile.

It could still take a while though if the lender has to look at things properly or it's not just a case of documenting something it already knows about.

Not the same situation but we had to get a name change done on our house as our vendors weren’t happy that our marriage certificate was proof that I was me and had changed my name. It seemed to take several weeks (though some of that might have been solicitor faffing about). We were ready to exchange apart from that issue at the end of jan and it ended up being mid March so I think it took 4-6 weeks.

When my dad died we just completed a form online & my mum got confirmation within 2 weeks it had been done.

We had something like this a few years ago. Put an offer in which was accepted. Turned out it was disposal of assets for a charitable trust and 3 out of 4 of the trustees were dead! Took over 12 months to sort out 🙁

You need to make sure it’s being expedited (they can expedite queries if a sale is depending on them)

There is a signed document that should of been sent to land registry 11 years ago that this lady signed go be taken off that was over seen by a solicitor but I'm not aware of any actual evidence that she got paid off this is just what the vendor is saying. Her solicitor wanted my solicitor to log this after completion but she said it's 11 years old which I understand. Im very worried as I know my buyer is desparate to be in and my girls need to move schools. I have rang and pushed everything I can to move this along but nothing can happen till the lender agrees.

Thanks for your reply