Delay with purchase - solicitor error with title deeds

[RM2013]

Just wondering whether anyone has been in a similar position and may be able to offer any advice?

we are in the process of selling our house and buying a freehold house which has a a separate leasehold garage. We were aware of this set up when we made the offer. All has been progressing well up until final enquiries were raised and it’s come to light that when the property was sold previously the title deeds to the freehold house were registered but the solicitor forgot to transfer the garage.

this means a previous owner is still registered on the garage.

solicitors have said they can sort but need the previous owner to complete a TR1

Being an overthinker I’ve now imagined all sorts of scenarios including the previous owner refusing the sign the paperwork, long delays and our buyer pulling out.

Can anyone offer any positives?

We had a similar mess (our sellers’ previous sellers’ solicitor had mucked up 7 years ago)…took about three weeks to resolve. We were unamused but have now exchanged.

@DelurkingAJ thanks for that. Annoying that it’s not our error but a previous conveyencing error. Our buyers were desperate to move in before Christmas but now looks very unlikely unless they force us to break the chain - we’d have to move in with our parents but not ideal as there’s 4 of us!!

i had read a horror story on another forum where the poor seller had discovered the same issue when she tried to sell, the previous owner refused to sign papers, it went to court and took over a year to sort. She lost her buyer and the house she wanted to buy 😣

Glad to hear you managed to exchange though - sounds like this issue is fairly common

This is probably a silly suggestion but as presumably the house and garage must be registered separate title numbers and what you are paying must be being split between the two, would it be possible to purchase the house for a reduced price before Christmas then purchase the garage for the rest of the agreed amount after Christmas. I realise the sellers might need the full amount in order to complete their onward purchase so it might not work.

@CheeseCakeSunflowers to be honest I did consider asking of this was an option. Our sellers don’t need cash for onward purchase as they are moving in with family to give themselves more time as they hadn’t found a property that they want to buy.
i will keep in touch with the solicitors as they seemed optimistic that is that it could be easily resolved and if it looks like it’s adding weeks to the timescale I might ask what our options are bu I suspect vendor wouldn’t want to do this

I am in exactly the same position, although a little further on, and involving two title plans (garage and parking space). I don't want to alarm you, but I noticed the error back in June when my offer was accepted, and today only one title plan is back from the land registry. We didn't get the forms back from the previous owner until mid October.

The vendors offered a retention with a view to completing on the house but I declined because at that point we didn't even have the signed forms back. Plus the retention figure appeared to have been plucked out of the air. Plus I wasn't interested in buying a house without some sort of parking.

It has apparently been expedited at the LR but we still haven't had sight of the second plan. To be honest I am tearing my hair out because nobody but me seems to give a shit about getting the sale through.

It will get resolved but potentially not before my mortgage offer runs out. In which case someone else will benefit. To say I am furious is an understatement.

Probably not what you want to hear but worth considering that it could take as long as mine has (week 23 and counting). Not positives but a worst case scenario, sorry!

@dubyalass thanks for your honesty and for sharing. I am really annoyed right now. I’m annoyed at the solicitors that made the original cock up (incidentally the same solicitors acting for me on my purchase!!) annoyed at our vendor for not spotting the error and annoyed at the solicitor (again) for only just noticing the omission despite me asking them to clarify the implications of the leasehold garage before searches were back and before they even started raising enquiries.

i really hope yours is sorted soon. We have until 1st Mar on our mortgage offer but had hoped to complete way before then.

i will be chasing regularly

Mine only came to light because I downloaded the title plan for the house and noticed that the garage was missing. A bit of sleuthing on the land registry portal using INSPIRE parcel references that I found somewhere, possibly on our council interactive map, showed that they were not in the vendor's name and had last sold in 2014. Except they hadn't, they'd sold in 2017 and the new owner was using them as if they were hers. Thankfully the old owners signed them over but there was no guarantee they would. I don't know where we'd be if I hadn't discovered it when I did.

@dubyalass well done on your detective work!! We were sent copies of the title deeds and it showed the parking spaces and the house as freehold but I just assumed that the garage wasn’t highlighted because it was leasehold. We’ve never had a leasehold property so I will admit our knowledge is very limited.

The solicitors seem confident that the previous seller will complete the TR1 form quickly and once they have this in their possession we can discuss completion dates. I’m not sure if I’ve misunderstood but they’ve seemed to suggest that this form will be sent alongside the TR1 forms that we need to complete to get both titles in our names with LR to avoid additional steps being taken with LR.

This is so frustrating

I'm almost certain that there will be a quicker way of doing it than the way it was handled for me! Searches only went out last week because I suggested that they use the title plans already in existence, albeit registered to the wrong person, because nothing will have changed. This apparently hadn't occurred to my solicitors. We could probably have submitted searches weeks ago, with an indemnity in place just in case anything changed. Some 'learning moments' for sure but I don't intend to move again after this debacle!

Ps good luck. I have all my fingers crossed for you.

@dubyalass thank you - will report back with progress