Sold house over a year ago but still registered as the owner

[GreyPaw]

I don't know whether to be worried about this or not. As the title says, I sold my previous home over a year ago. I had verification from Land Registry the mortgage was discharged, and heard nothing more. I bought a new house at the same time, and about six months the Title was transferred into my name.

However I've checked just now as I had an alert that a pending charge has been filed against my old house. I checked the Registry, and it's still listed as belonging to me and my late husband. Land Registry Sold prices also don't show the most recent sale - it's as if it never happened.

I'm really worried about what all this means. If I'm still the registered owner, am I still responsible for it? Is this a normal thing to have happened? Waiting for a response from the solicitor that handled my side, but in the meantime I'm wondering if anyone on here has experienced similar.

I think it's simply because titles are taking SO long to be registered at the moment.
I imagine this is due to the Stamp Duty offer last year and bloody Covid.

Land registry is running woefully behind. Put to 2 years in some cases.

When we sold a flat recently, our solicitor told us it's currently taking up to 18 months for the Land Registry entries to catch up with sales.

DD bought her house end of September, she got confirmation from her solicitor the records were updated in about April, I would speak to your conveyancer.

Check with your solicitor . I would be slightly worried as the mortgage discharge has been dealt with, so why not the purchase?

A year for a standard transfer sounds too long according to this:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/measures-to-support-customers

But it looks like your conveyancer should be able to log in to their portal and check progress for you, and hopefully see if there is a hold up.

Thanks everyone. It was a really complex sale, house and big bit of land with lots of changes of boundaries etc going back to mid 1800s. I wonder if that makes a difference?

Anyone know what the consequences could be for me if there's been an issue and the registration can't go ahead?

It's the fault of the Land Registry or the solicitor for the person who bought your house- nothing to do with your solicitor although no doubt they'll check in with your purchaser's solicitor to see what's the situation. There aren't really any issues for you as the transfer deed will show the date you sold etc. Hopefully the purchaser's solicitor has put in their application and it's just been held up because of massive backlogs.
The LR can expedite in certain situations such as if the new purchaser wanted to now sell or remortgage or something and this hadn't been dealt with but I don't think there's any real issue from your side of things.

I used to work in conveyancing

You are marvellous, thank you so much. I was hoping that would be the case. I think it's gone back and forth a bit, and I'm concerned that there was an issue with the legal side as it was so complex and that the actual transfer of ownership hasn't happened or is being prevented. Not only was the land and the boundaries complicated, but my late husband's name was still on it and stuff had to be done to have it removed etc.

I've asked for clarification from my solicitor but she's on mat leave and I've had no reply yet. It caused a heap of stress at the time so I'm nervous it's going to follow me into the future somehow.

because they are separate things...the discharge of the mortgage is almost always done electronically nowadays if your bank is a standard high Street lender. (Hence when you pay off your mortgage you don't need to get a solicitor involved and your bank usually discharges it electronically and that's that.
The purchase is dealt with by the purchaser's solicitor and a specific application has to be made for this with the relevant docs, which it sounds like may be more complicated if there's a death certificate to lodge and other docs...and just generally LR have massive backlogs atm!

You can check that the buyer's solicitor has applied to register it here:
www.gov.uk/guidance/land-registry-portal-make-an-application-enquiry

If the sale was a transfer of part or unregistered deeds these are specialist registrations and can take well over a year. We have some which have taken over two years. New registrations currently going in are not taking this long but they still have backlogs. Also, bear in mind, if the land registry raise any requisitions on the registration this would also likely delay matters. You can phone the land registry and ask them direct, as the seller I don’t see why they shouldn’t be able to give an ETA of when the registration may be completed, please know that you can’t always rely on these ETA dates, as they do change, depending on their current workload and expedited registration that they have a greed to do.

I am in the same position,as i am still registered as the owner i am going to put it up for sale again

Put it on the market. Once you have found a buyer then either your old solicitors who acted for you in your original purchase or your new solicitors that you instruct in your new sale can apply to the Land Registry to expedite the registration. The Land Registry will require proof, however, in order to agree so this, proof would be the memo from the estate agents which won’t be produced until a buyer is found. Either solicitor can apply to expedite the registration, so it doesn’t have to be your old solicitor. If the estate agent gets a copy of your title document and queries the owner, just explain that the application is still pending and if necessary, send a copy of the transfer deed which you signed, which will have the completion date on. Your original solicitors will have a copy of this which they can email to you.