What is "land registry official copy of register of title"

[KatyMac]

And if the leasehold information is wrong how serious is it?

Can we get our own copy?

Will it hold up a purchase of a leasehold flat?

Not got a tremendous amount of faith in our solicitor

You can download the register of title for £3 from the Land registry website, here: LR If once you've downloaded the title it says something like "copy filed" then you'll need to complete the form linked in the webpage and send it back to LR for a search. This is a bit more expensive.

I can't help on the leasehold questions though.

The £3 one says nothing much I may have to look at the more indepth one

What’s wrong with your lease and who has said so?

The solicitor sent a copy of a document title as above

The date the lease for the flat DD is buying is 2015, all the other flats are 2105 so we think its a mistype

But as its "official" weren't know how serious that ia

That’s 90 years between the two dates - have the other flats extended their leases; and the person selling yours decided not to? We have someone who has done that in our block of flats. His now expires much sooner than everyone else’s; who had 90 years added on together.

If they haven't extended the lease a lot of lenders won't touch it with a barge pole.

We were initially told our sellers had extended it longer than the other flats but surely if it ran out in 2015 they can't sell it

What is your solicitor doing to advise you? You can report him/her to the SRA. A lot of solicitor practices now rely on legal executives with little experience with experienced solicitors not overseeing properly.

You need to be on his/her case with your queries.

Well that is about the freehold and you are buying the leasehold it shouldn't hold up the purchase (that we are already 11weeks into- cash buyer, flat with no occupants)

What does the leasehold register say?

Have you seen a signed and dated copy of the lease extension?

Have you asked the seller for proof that they’ve extended the lease?

It seems odd. Most leasehold properties say that you’ve been granted a lease for XX years from a date, rather than given an expiry date. Does the one you’re looking at say it was extended for XX years from 2015; or have you worked out how much is left?

I’m sorry your solicitor is being rubbish…

@crosstalk

What is your solicitor doing to advise you? You can report him/her to the SRA. A lot of solicitor practices now rely on legal executives with little experience with experienced solicitors not overseeing properly.

You need to be on his/her case with your queries.

Not quite right. I was a legal executive. By the time I qualified and was able to call myself a legal executive I had 6 years of experience running a caseload. Newly qualified solicitors had 2 years experience in comparison. It's paralegals, legal assistants, casework managers or any other number of made up titles that aren't qualified and don't have a designated level of experience or qualification. Even then, I worked with a private client paralegal who had 40 odd years of experience and was our department's go-to person for advice on complicated trust laws in will disputes.

We have about 25 documents I am working my way through with DF but I never bought leasehold before

Don't buy the flat until they have sorted this! Don't trust promises that it will be sorted after you purchase. We got stuck with a flat with a low leasehold after solicitor completely messed up the extension that was started by the previous owner but that we were supposed to take over. We were advised we could pursue the mistake by a new solicitor but as original one went bust soon afterwards we were happy we didn't waste our time and money. However we were left with a 25K bill further down the line in order to get a new leasehold and it could have been much worse, we were just lucky that the freeholder decided to sell the freehold and we were able to buy this with other leaseholders and grant ourselves extensions .

Today (supposed to exchange tomorrow and complete on Monday) we find out the solicitor would not advise buying the flat due to multiple lease issues

Aaarrrgghhh!

Is there a problem with locating the freeholder I wonder?

We had a lot of hassle when buying a property with a dd, when the FHolder apparently couldn’t be traced.

Our solicitor (who TBH was slow and pretty hopeless) advised at the last minute not to go ahead with the purchase, but we did, because we thought it was a good buy. We had intended to buy the FH, but had to employ a specialist sol, who was very good. By then there was no way we’d have used the original sol for anything.

@KatyMac

The solicitor sent a copy of a document title as above

The date the lease for the flat DD is buying is 2015, all the other flats are 2105 so we think its a mistype

But as its "official" weren't know how serious that ia

Which one do you think is the mistype? How have your solicitors not picked up on this before a proposed exchange date? I'd be raising a complaint. Presumably enquires were raised and answered before a date was put forward?

There isvthre freeholder (land), the company who owns the building leases off them for the whole estate and the each flat has a lease

It's the building lease that is wrong but that's not why we can't buy it

We can't extend the lease on the flat unless the company extends the lease on the building (& if they do extend that lease they will pass the costs on to us - so when she do our individual lease it will mean paying again)
And the ground rent it too much already £250 (not london) & due to go up on 2025 and that will make it too high for a lot of mortgage companies & changes the type of lease some how

I see the problem now. It’s annoying but those are major issues.

What solution will your lender accept for the ground rent? Have any other leases in the block had their ground rent varied?

The block lease being too short is a bugger though.

To be pragmatic - is this why the flat seemed good value - if so and the lease can't be extended for a reasonable ( to you / DD ) cost maybe you have to pull out.

Yes I reckon they will struggle to sell it - it wasn't too good to be true but it was "realistic" in a collection of flats that all need the cladding certificate and it didn't

No lease extension is possible unless the middle company extend theirs and paying twice to extend both leases makes it very expensive

There are other flats on the market at lower prices but not ground floor and with DD being a dancer no one wants to live under her!

She is having a bit of a crisis trying to work out of she bought it and rented it out (in 10 years ) would she be able to afford a house & the answer is probably no

@KatyMac - Assuming your daughter is relatively young - if it were my Dc I would not advise buying a flat with compromises & renting it out in the hope of buying a house in a decade - just an opinion.

I would pull out and buy something with fewer problems - & that might take a while - but assuming she has somewhere to live in the interim , that is what I would do if it were my DC

But I wish your daughter well @KatyMac - it is hard isn't it?

I would avoid leasehold properties, especially flats. There are so many problems and pitfalls with them.

Things like block management fees and insurance can cost a fortune too. I have two friends dealing with cladding and lease issues atm and it is turning into a full time job.

Yes between cladding and leases this is a nightmare

We are going to end up paying rent to store furniture long term so I am looking for somewhere cheaper! We thought just a couple of months in storage and it's been 4 already

She won't buy it - she has decided