Additional title deed discovered post sale

[waribai]

We purchased a probate property early last year and though one of the death certificates took a while to be processed the sale went through. I was then waiting for the sale record to appear on the Land Registry which eventually it did. However, around November it disappeared. This made me suspicious. I then pulled up the title on the Land Registry website and discovered that the titles were still in the names of previous late occupants. I say “titles” because I then discovered that there was another separate title for the adjoining land on which half the garage stands which the previous occupant bought in later years from the neighbour so as to build a garage. This was never highlighted to us and it didn't occur to me that half the garage width (approx. 1.5m x 10m) could have a separate title!

In late December, when I communicated with our solicitor who had overseen the purchase, it transpired that the previous application (following completion of our purchase) to the Land Registry was cancelled due to the discharge from the seller's lender not being provided in time. So, they had contacted the probate company's solicitor and were waiting for their confirmation that the charge had been removed from the title. I also raised the issue of the additional title and she basically said thanks for letting her know!

I contacted our solicitor again two months ago and she said it is now with the land registry. As I was rather anxious about this, I then contacted the probate company's solicitor who gave me a slightly different story saying that he was making enquiries with the probate company about this. This made me even more worried. So, I contacted the probate company today to see if they could give me any further information. They basically told me where to go and to only communicate via my solicitor.
I asked my solicitor about this again last month and she repeated that this was with the Land Registry.
Then yesterday I saw our next door neighbour by chance. He had a very concerned look on his face and asked if everything had gone ok with the sale because according to him, the estate agent who sold us the house has approached him recently and asked if he would like to buy half of the land on which our garage stands as “We did not buy it!”

Luckily, the estate agent's advert is still live and clearly shows the house was advertised as including the garage. It is mentioned in the text, there are photos of it in the advert and it is included in his walkthrough video! To be honest, we actually thought he was ok as well. Middle aged gentleman and quite well spoken. He came across well until this!

Any advice on this would be most welcome as this has put slight downer on our family's weekend. The silver lining is that the neighbour says he has no interest in this and can’t believe the estate agent or probate company would try to pull this after the sale.
The other silver lining is that both titles are in the deceased owners names and there seems to be very restricted covenants which seem to bind the land to the adjoining property and prohibit anyone who does not own land adjoining it to have an interest.

I have also passed this new information about the estate agent onto our solicitor and I am really hoping this can get resolved.
Am I worrying excessively?
Anyone with better knowledge than me on these matters, your input would be welcome!

Wow! No advice, sorry, but have you taken screen shots of the listing so you have all the details in case they pull it?

I think you need to speak to your solicitor, it's down to them to sort out - they should have looked at the deed they did see and queried why half a garage , surely?

Thanks. Yes, I'll see what the solicitor says tomorrow. To be very fair, looking at the photo of the house. Then looking at the title plan their solicitor presented. You wouldn't really question anything further. It looks like a house with some land on the side where the garage is situated. It is only if you see the additional title that you would think ok , yes that only covers half the garage.

Presumably your solicitor sent you a copy of the title plan and got your confirmation that it covered what you were buying?

Indeed they did.

I would challenge anyone unfamiliar with the conveyancing process to upon looking at the first image then take the initiative and email the solicitor and say "Hey! Excuse me, that clearly only covers half the garage area in that title. Let me guess there is another title for 1.5m x9m of land?" Especially when the house and garage are attached!

Ok but from the solicitor's point of view they have not seen the land so they won't know,that's why they send you the plan

The solicitors job is to advise surely? They know what they're looking at and so should check with their client about only buying half the garage. They also should already be aware their client is wanting to purchase the whole garage because surely they do some homework on the property like looking at the estate agents advert? If the solicitor it at fault no wonder they're being cagey about what's happening.

What about all the searches etc didn't those flag up only half a garage? Who does the searches, isn't a solicitor involved in that too?

Fingers crossed you get the second title transfer into your name without problems. Hopefully the vendors aren't dickheads. If the covenant (?) says nobody except those on either side of the land can have an interest in it then the vendors can't as they've now sold the other half of the garage. So what else can they do other than give it to you? At least the neighbour doesn't want it, they could have totally shafted you with the price to buy it.

I wonder if it was the vendors who instructed the estate agents to offer it to the neighbour though in the hope of getting some more money, not letting on that they'd made a mistake in the sale to you, and walking away from the shit-storm that would have ensued between you and neighbour? Someone somewhere is trying to cover their arse anyway.

Thanks. Yes, arse covering does seem like what is going on. My guess is that the vendor is maybe not completely in the picture as he is the son of the deceased and actually knows our neighbour from childhood, as both their parents bought the respective properties in the early 70s. No, I think it is the estate agent and the probate company representing the vendor who are sensing an opportunity to make a few extra quid then present it to the vendor as a fait accompli.
I am also guessing that they indirectly wanted to actually make a bit more money out of us by hopefully our neighbour also being interested in the land.
Yes, I'm not sure how much we can blame the solicitor. Does she have a responsibility to see if there are any additional titles related to the property? As someone said above, they do write "As I won't be visiting the property you need to check blah blah blah" How would you check though for such a small slither of land?

The title deeds generally speaking show the land ,not what's built on it

Yes, as I say. I am not really blaming the solicitor. What exactly are you advising though?

Well the key is to find out for definite if you have received title to all the land
If not then that needs to sorted ASAP

As I said in the first post, none of the titles are in our name yet. It is all still pending with Land Registry according to the solicitor.

I've got no idea. Just think it's shitty that someone professional drew up the plan and didn't bother to look at t say to you by the way you realise you're buying half a building? Which would have brought the whole thing out into the open. Also it's an error I the vendors ( or their solicitors) part because it should have been sold from the beginning being mentioned as two plots of land. You've likely got a claim against them for misrepresentation if nothing else. They advertise a house and garage as one plot. No mention of half a garage or there being an additional plot of land. A bit of land which after they've sold to you they can't legally own themselves anyway. Make sure you've got everything screen shots, shame you didn't have that for the land registry page too. Have you done some googling to try to find a phone number or address for the vendor? Probably better off speaking to him directly if you can. Between people's social media and online advertising etc it's surprising what you can come up with if you piece together all the information as you come across it

Thanks. Yes, the neighbour actually knows how to contact him and he said he would. I didn't want to push him on it though (the neighbour I mean). I've got screenshots of the estate agent's website. What do you mean about the same for the land registry page? The titles are in the public domain.....

You said it was in your name on land registry then it disappeared. Unless I misunderstood that.

If there's a rule preventing anyone else from having interest on the rogue strip of land except those on either side, and the neighbour's registered on one side and you registered on the other, then it's a done deal that the vendor can't own that strip.

Which is why I suspect it was removed from the land registry site so they can argue it's not sorted out yet and try somehow to extract more money from you, withholding registration of the house in your name as leverage . If you had a screenshot showing it was already in your name, leverage gone

No, the name transfers aren't complete yet because they were still waiting for the lender's discharge letter. It was pending but got cancelled due to that not being sent by the other side's solicitor.
It appeared on zoopla as sold on xx date then disappeared which is what got me then checking land registry etc......
How can they withhold registration of the house in our name if the sale was completed though?

Surely since the vendor has received the money a year ago and the sale was completed for the main title, they can’t hold on to the title now?

How can they withhold registration of the house in our name if the sale was completed though?

Legally I expect you're right. People do sometimes need to have legal battles to get others to behave legally though.

Sorry I misunderstood about it being on Zoopla/land registry before.

Hopefully the vendor isn't a dickhead and is slow about contacting you because of grief. Only, your situation currently is you own half the garage and the house isn't in your name. The half a garage thing, worst case scenario is it costs money to knock down I suppose, and you don't have a garage. The house not being in your name though, I believe that prevents you selling until it is. So worst case scenario is the place isn't what you want (no garage, extended hassle to sort things, expense of it) and you can't sell either. You'd be stuck. If the house was in your name you could at least sell if you wanted to and the argument about the odd strip of land wouldn't be your problem any more (although the existence of an argument might devalue your property).

The one silver lining is the neighbour isn't a dickhead, considers the land yours, so at least you can use it and aren't being pressured to knock the garage down by him.

Thanks. Yes, I'm still waiting to hear back from the solicitor. I think you're right though. The main disadvantage is that we wouldn't be able to sell the house without the title issue being resolved. We are also hopefully here for the long-term as we'd been eyeing this location for a while. So, if the vendor wants to play silly buggers we are not pressured by time.
Yes, the other real silver lining is that the neighbour isn't on a land grab mission which would have put us under real pressure. He also said he's not planning to move anytime soon. So, the avaricious estate agent is limited in his options.
I just can't believe that a seemingly respectable middle aged man would be prepared to inflict misery on a family just to potentially make a few extra pounds.....

If the vendor turns out to be a dickhead, I can see a situation where he won't put the house in your name easily if doing so would put him into being illegal, by owning the rogue strip of land when the rules prevent it.

He could try arguing (probably pointlessly, given how it was advertised, but people are often fools) that you need to pay extra for the rogue strip and only then will he agrees to transfer all into your name.

Also if something had a time limit that has lapsed, there could be another fee of some sort to pay to start that process up again. An additional fee which nobody planned for or wants to pay but which you, as the person who most needs this sorted out, could end up being lumbered with.

Obviously you agreed the purchase price for the house based on there being:

a) a garage
b) you owning all the land it sat on
c) there being no arguments involved with it all.

You've already been shafted on all three of those counts, meaning you've already overpaid based purely on vendors misrepresentation in advertising.

So if the vendor is a dickhead who is determined to extract even more money from you, for fees or rogue strips of land, knowing they've got the upper hand because you currently have paid a lot of money to "own" a property that you can't sell because you're not the registered owner, then this could get messy and end up in court.

I'm wondering two things.

1. does the vendor know anything about this at all? If not, given you've personally got no way of contacting the vendor to tell him, was the estate agents/probate people going to not mention it to him at all and pocket the cash themselves if the neighbour had agreed to purchase the extra strip of land?

2. do you perhaps need a new solicitor? One who hasn't been involved in this sale, and therefore can't be in any way at fault, to act in your best interests (instead of their own arse covering interests)? Your current solicitor could have an attitude of I'm-alright-Jack because presumably you've already paid their fee a year ago, so the incentive to sort this out isn't necessarily there. You could take the vendor to court for the additional solicitor fees if you engage one.

This is why I don't think you should rely on the neighbour (who doesn't want to be involved) to contact the vendor (who already has your money) and wait patiently for him to get back to you to sort this out. I really would be finding a phone number or address and calling/showing up there myself, to force him to get involved with sorting this out ASAP.

The longer this goes on for, the greater the risk of individual solicitors changing company or going bust and records being lost as to what exactly has happened, until many years from now you end up in court with a "he said-she said" situation, £100K+ down on a house you don't technically own.

Thanks. Yes, on the first point I wondered this myself. However, my other half said this would be completely illegal and they wouldn't take this risk :)
The neighbour is actually a childhood friend of the vendor as they both grew up in the neighbouring houses. The neighbor moved back in after his dad died but doesn't see so much of our vendor now. He actually was quite keen to get in touch with the vendor just to find out what is going on. I didn't want to get him involved. So, I told him not to worry. I might re-encourage him to get back on to him!
It was actually the neighbour's father who created this small extra title so that the neighbour could build a garage. I think that's why he was also so angry as he felt the estate agent was disrespecting the neighbourly setup!

I'll speak to the neigbour again. He's quite a private guy though. So, I don't want to put him into a corner! I have tried finding the vendor's direct contact myself but he's got a very common name. It's not easy......

You could also be right about the solicitor. Her firm got paid last February. Spending excessive time on this will not result in her promotion!

As I guessed, the estate agent has amended the advert today and removed the word 'garage' from the text. Surely, a straightforward case of attempted fraud if he goes any further?

We had a slightly similar situation, although the vendors were upfront, which is what should have happened in your case.

We live in an end terrace and the original entry to the house was through our neighbour's passage way and their garden. There is now a small passage way next to our house at the end, but we don't own it (which is fine as we have the right to use it).

I'm just thinking, if they hadn't told us, how we would have spotted it. Our solicitor sent us the plan of the plot and asked us if it looked right. It did...I think I'd maybe have noticed, but when it's such a small bit of land there is no way to be sure. My husband probably wouldn't have! We looked at the neighbouring title deed, but you wouldn't necessarily have noticed this as even if your solicitor had done it, they would have looked at next door's entry and not realised there was a small plot in the middle.

I hope you have screen shots of the old listing. Is there anything in the property information form, or the search results you were given that might back up that they were misleading you and implying the garage was part of the sale?

The estate agents sound as dodgy as anything, but I don't see how they could offer for sale without the owners knowing. I wonder if your solicitor contacted their solicitor they might be able to put a bit of pressure on them to sort it out without argument.