How quickly can you cancel an application to LR?

[kitchenplanner]

How quickly will the land registry respond to a cancellation of an application to discharge one lender's charge and add a different lender's charge? Is it instant?

I've posted on another thread about an issue I'm facing with a previous lender's charge not being discharged. One option our solicitor has suggested was for the application to be cancelled, but no mention of timing - which is very critical.

It's not usually instant - pre Covid, it could have been in a couple of days, but there's massive backlogs now.

What was the application for? A remortgage? The new lender likely won't agree to having their application cancelled. If it's not registered, they won't have any control over the asset that you've mortgaged - essentially, it makes your mortgage an unsecured loan.

This'd be an unusual situation, it's hard to advise without knowing what you need to do, but my instinct is that the LR isn't getting anything processed instantly or faster than at least a week or so at the moment.

I’m not sure which application the solicitor is suggesting gets cancelled (presumably it will get resubmitted in the near future) but I think I see what they might be hinting at…

Some lenders can submit electronic forms to the LR which can be processed by an automated system hence it will be instant. For discharges this is most major lenders, for charges it’s still hardly any.

The big caveat to this is that the LR still has to process all applications for one property in the order in which they were received. So if the discharge application was received after the charge application then it will have to wait and both will be processed simultaneously.

It’s neither here nor there though since presumably you want both applications to go through? Cancelling and resubmitting won’t help that. The major thing they can do to help it go through on time is to ensure there weren’t any mistakes on the application.

The whole story:

We remortgaged from HSBC to Nationwide in August. Completed 2 August. HSBC wrote to the LR discharging of their charge on 11 August. Solicitor A managed this remortgage (a quick transaction, solicitor recommended by broker).

We are now selling. We exchanged on 10 September. Due to complete 28 September. Solicitor B has been managing the sale. Solicitor B says they need solicitor A to either: (1) expedite their application to LR to discharge of HSBC's charge, or (2) cancel their application, ahead of completion. I think expedite is a no go, so option 2 is most likely.

@kitchenplanner I have seen your threads on here and very similar on other forums… what I’m not understanding is why your solicitor went ahead and exchanged knowing that the title had charges that would not be removed on completion?

My solicitor was not clear on this. I'm pretty sure I mentioned the remortgage over the phone but there's no written record, so they might claim they had no knowledge until after exchange.

Related question - wouldn't the buyer's solicitor's searches have revealed there to be charges on the title?

@kitchenplanner yes the buyers solicitor will have seen but potentially not been interested in the detail, I’ve seen similar enquiries raised but usually they are vague eg does the sellers solicitor ensure all charges removed/ outstanding mortgages paid. From their perspective it must look like a regular mortgage to be cleared on completion?

Your solicitor must have asked details on your current mortgage and should have ordered a redemption statement from your current lender pre exchange to satisfy that the purchase price is enough to pay the outstanding loan, therefore releasing the charge. If they did this they should have surely realised the charge registered was a different lender? I would be raising this as a complaint with your conveyancing firm if you haven’t done so already.

@Orangecrisp that's what I wondered too. The remortgage completed very early August, so could they have checked before that, and then not again before exchange?

I told my agent what had happened and he was adamant the solicitor is at fault. I posted on money saving forum and there was a pile on, with people saying it was entirely my fault, so I don't know now. It doesn't matter right now whose fault it is anyway - I just want it to go through.

I think that may be the general mindset on MSE and still worth exploring. It is relevant who us at fault as if it is your conveyancer, they will be able to compensate you if they cannot find a solution and will definitely be more amenable to finding a solution. How long before the remortgage did you instruct the conveyancer?

As in MSE tends to pile on?

I spoke to my broker back in May about both the remortgage and the sale. He brokered both products. I instructed the solicitor managing the sale at the end of June/start of July.

Even if the solicitor is not at fault for what happened prior to exchange, the fact is I checked with them just after exchange whether all was in hand for transferring from Nationwide to HSBC, and they confirmed it would be fine, nothing to worry about. I then repeatedly chased to ask if all was ok, and they repeatedly said all they needed was written confirmation from HSBC (they had received verbal already) which they expected to receive shortly. It was only 5pm on Friday that they mentioned needing anything from the previous solicitor at all.

I suspect you have a complaint against the solicitor for the way they've handled your transaction, but not a financial claim, if you can't prove that they were aware of the remortgage.

This is a pretty unusual situation, it's almost unheard of to transfer your mortgage so close to selling, so it's likely that both solicitors were following the normal procedures. You'd need to prove that your solicitor was aware that you'd remortgaged, and therefore the standard procedure wasn't enough.

How many people are in your chain? Is it just you and your buyer?

Solicitor A can ask the Land Registry to expedite the case as it's holding up a transaction - it'll then be processed as quickly as possible, but I doubt that will be before Tuesday. It's unlikely that Nationwide would allow the charge to be cancelled, as their charge would then be unsecured, even if you were imminently planning to pay it back...

An undertaking could be an option, if your buyer and their solicitor are happy with that, but it's likely to be a no-go if your buyer is getting a mortgage, as that usually requires the bank to be the first charge.

Realistically I'd have said your best option is probably to get Solicitor A to expedite their LR request; and prepare the rest of the chain for delayed completion, but you could incur costs for that - so the size of your chain is pretty important there.

(On the solicitor front, if the same solicitor had handled both transactions, this would have been much easier... I wonder why your broker thought transferring so close to a sale was a good idea; and even then, that using two solicitors made sense. You could probably complain there, too, but again it's probably not enough for a financial claim, it's just poor practice.)

We are buying from someone who's the top of the chain.

Am I right in thinking if the buyer is happy with an undertaking then completion can go ahead? The buyer is a cash buyer.

The broker is L&C - I've used them before and they're pretty solid. They knew the two transactions would be fairly close together. On another forum, posters said I shouldn't have been 'greedy' and remortgaged with another lender instead of just sucking up the standard variable rate. But the SVR was close to 4% - would most people really just suck this up for 2-3 months or longer?

Am I right in thinking if the buyer is happy with an undertaking then completion can go ahead? The buyer is a cash buyer.

Ahh that might well work then - yes, Solicitor A can provide an undertaking that the charge will be removed, and if the buyer is happy, completion can take place.

The solicitor would have to agree to offer one - it's a pretty serious thing, they basically guarantee that the thing will happen, or they can have action taken against them - but if they will, and your buyer will accept, you'd be okay.

On the SVR... Talking generally, you'd usually push the chain to complete before the mortgage rate ended, or approach the mortgage provider for a retention rate; but if neither of those were possible, it's not THAT unusual to remortgage, especially with rates around 4%. It'd usually just be the case that remortgaging meant exchange and completion have to be delayed until the charges have been dealt with.

If everything had run smoothly, you'd be waiting for the LR to change the charge, and then you'd exchange, and it'd all go as normal.

Sorry you got berated, that's not helpful

@TakeYourFinalPosition do you mean if Solicitor A undertakes that Nationwide or HSBC's charge will be removed? Just to be really clear. HSBC has confirmed they have discharged of their charge already.

I copy below what our current solicitor told me 5pm Friday, if anyone can make sense of it:

‘I have spoken with my Director about this, who has advised the best course of action would be to instruct [the remortgage solicitors] to either;

• Expedite the application for the discharge of HSBC's charge, and the adding of Nationwide's charge
• Cancel their application - leaving the register without a lender on as we will be redeeming Nationwide's charge upon completion.

Please contact [remortgage solicitor] with these options, as this will determine how we are able to proceed with completion on the 28th.’

So the current land registry deeds have HSBC as the lender? But your redemption is with Nationwide? It doesn’t sit right with me that the conveyancer wouldn’t pick that up and realise the charges won’t be satisfied. In most cases they will order two redemption statements, one when instructed and one right before you exchange with the redemption charge right up to the completion date , which should have highlighted the lenders don’t match? When we bought our latest house exchange was delayed as the sellers most up to date redemption statement hadn’t arrived, they would not exchange without it as it would potentially leave the seller exposed.

Hopefully the fact you have a cash buyer will mean they accept the undertaking, although you will need to get onto your conveyancer tomorrow to request this. Asking why they haven’t picked up on the change in lender might influence this.

@Orangecrisp thank you for this. I plan to ring solicitor B first thing to ascertain what they think the options are, and implications for completion on Tuesday. Then ring solicitor A to ascertain what they're happy to do. I did email (no-one picked up when I called) solicitor A straight after receiving B's Friday email, and their reply was 'we can try to expedite'. I suggested that might not be quick enough, and would they consider cancelling. They then said they didn't know and would check with a colleague. The actual conveyancer in charge of this remortgage was so so useless so I'll have to ask to speak to their director I think.

I managed to expedite with the land registry myself.. I just rang to find out how long it was likely to take and when they told me it would be another six months I just explained the situation and asked if it could be sped up- the woman on the phone put it through to be expedited and it was done the next day. Just ring the land registry in the morning, I'm sure they will sort you out.

I also found this article interesting:
www.brecher.co.uk/news/mounting-delays-at-the-land-registry-cause-application-chaos-what-can-be-done/

@Bloomsburyreader thank you for this. I saw that article too, was encouraging. My reading was that if the buyer will accept an undertaking then it will be ok. I'm counting on them to accept, on the basis that we all want to avoid not completing, and I feel like we can easily show it's just an administrative issue.

I will ring LR tomorrow.

@kitchenplanner Have you managed to talk to your solicitors? I hope things are working out!

And any luck on getting LR to expedite?

Thanks everybody. It's been an incredibly stressful morning, I was close to vomiting, but the LR has updated the title!

For future readers in a similar pickle, what you must do if you need a title updated ASAP is:

• get your previous conveyancer to expedite with LR ASAP
• call LR yourself with the title number and chase repeatedly
• use the LR forum. Someone called AdamH from the LR mans that and updates you on progress

Our solicitor was absolutely shite on managing this fiasco. They admitted fault for giving us the wrong advice and communicating poorly. They even gave us the wrong advice today, saying they didn't need the correct title today if the previous conveyancer would provide an undertaking, and that there was no reason whatsoever they would refuse to do that. Well guess what, the previous conveyancer refused. So thank god LR came through for us.

If you PM me I'll tell you the solicitors involved. Both absolutely unacceptable and will be reported after we complete.

Ahh that's excellent news, I'm so glad that you've got things sorted.

Sorry about your solicitors being rubbish