AIBU wanting to pull out of property purchase?

[Jazxholly]

So.. this is a complicated one.

Me and my partner had an offer accepted on a property in October 2022, Mortgage offer issued November, so no hold ups on our end...

We were then advised by our solicitor in February that the seller would need to register the property with the land registry before we could go ahead with the purchase as the deeds were very unclear . The property was a working farm at one point, main house sold off years previous, but the bungalow the sellers father built afterwards retained all the surrounding land ( The bungalow and part of the land is what we are buying).

Anyway this was completed a couple of weeks ago, we received a copy of the title 2 weeks ago and part of the land we had agreed to purchase had not been included in the title.

So obviously I'm on the phone straight away asking our solicitor what is happening, it took her 3 days to work out what I was referring to 🙄I then instructed she send the sellers solicitor an email asking why this has happened.

This was done over a week ago and we have still not received a reply!! I called the estate agents yesterday and more or less demanded they contact the seller to contact her solicitor as a matter of urgency!

Our mortgage offer has already been extended once and will expire on the 1st of August so if its another land registry issue we do not have the time to wait for a resolution!

Anyway I want to threaten to pull out but my partner is disagreeing with me as he doesn't want to upset the seller as she is as frustrated with the whole situation as us and we hope to be able to buy more land that she is retaining in the future... but we are now 8 and a half months in and still no sign of a completion date.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation and threated to pull out? What was the outcome?

Would you actually pull out if the Title Plan is not re-drawn as you want it?
Or would you re-negotiate the price to reflect the reduced plot?

Or ideally re you hoping that all will be solve in time for your mortgage offer?

The problem is that they my not be able to get the Land re-registered in time.

What does your solicitor advise? Is there an alternative solution, e.g that they sell the 'left off' bit as a separate deal?

This is a massive & risky purchase with huge amounts of money at stake and your partner's main concern is he doesn't want to upset the person who stands to make a lot of money at your expense?
Is he soft in the head?

@EggInANest We wouldn't go ahead with the purchase unless it includes the full amount of land agreed as its the minimum we were willing to accept.

Ideally we want it resolved before our mortgage offer expires, we just need to know who is at fault which is what we are waiting for an answer to. Is it the vendors solicitor who has made an error or the land registry, amendments can be done within 10 days if expedited so it is do able but they are just completely avoiding the questions asked, which makes us think it is the solicitor who has made the error.

Ok it’s hard to understand was the land always seperate? Why is it not in the current deeds?

@Thesharkradar not usually 😂 Its usually me not wanting to upset anyone and him making demands!

But now ive finally had enough of the whole thing as it is actually ridiculous now!

@Peonyfun Its never been registered with the land registry, this was its first registration, the land in question is one big field and they have essentially cut it in half on the title plan.

The vendor inherited it all from her late father, bits of been sold off over the years which has made it more difficult I assume..

Does she have proof she owns it? I am assuming no response as there is an issue.

I’ve bought a previously unregistered title before so have some experience here. In our car the land registry refused to include a right of way because it derived from a different title to the plot we were buying- often, unregistered titles are made up of a patchwork of different title plots (in our case the road was separate to the verges which were separate to the adjacent land etc). What might have happened here is that the full plot you need to buy could not be registered in the same title because it’s made up from different title plots - maybe the documents they submitted didn’t adequately cover all the land as a result. It’s not fatal to your purchase - they might need to register the other part of your prospective plot under a different title and you buy two titles (nb you need stamp duty advice on that).
what you really need here is a responsive and very experienced solicitor- is yours / theirs up to scratch? Can the file be handed up to a partner in the same firm etc? You very much get what you pay for and if you are going to progress things, you may need to throw money at finding out what the issues are for your seller to resolve before 1 august. Which is possibly to right for any land registry related activity (can you buy part and then buy the other part once that title is registered or will it require a new mortgage application?)

I am not sure that at this stage it matters whose fault it is,it’s about can it be sorted and how long will it take

I would email your solicitor and tell them you will only go ahead if you, get all the land, ask them what needs to be done to achieve that and approximate time scales

Was typing when you posted at 12.25 - that one field could be multiple different original conveyances back in the 19th century and the land reg can’t provide the full title if one of the subsequent conveyances wasn’t provided to them. Your seller probably did apply for the entire plot to be registered but the LR can only register what they can confirm from the docs provided. It’s becoming a bit of a lost art since there are fewer and fewer sales of unregistered land taking place - a junior conveyancer/ solicitor may never have encountered one before

@Peonyfun Yes its all been through probate and things around 2 years ago, the house has been empty since then.

The house and surrounding acreage has been registered on the land registry under her name.

@Motheranddaughter our solicitor is aware of this and she has raised our concerns for us, its the vendors solicitor who is now completely avoiding the question..

I’m surprised at your surprise regarding the delays with the solicitors. Is this your first purchase?

I agree about speaking to them to get timescales in place. It might be you go ahead with the sale at a reduced price whilst simultaneously purchasing the additional plot of land for the difference in price, as that could take longer to resolve.

The only time you threaten to pull out is if that’s what you intend to do and you sound like you think it will get you what you want instead. The seller will just readvertise the property and sell to someone else whilst you will still need to get another mortgage if you want to buy elsewhere.

@Vermin I have thought that this might be the case, but its very unusual because its 1 large field and it looks as though they have just chopped it in half.. the access to the fields further back are all accessed via the entrance that exists at the front part which has been omitted from the title..

I think my next step is to speak to our solicitors boss as such to see if he can make of light of it. At this point I will pay whatever to whoever can come up with some resolution 😂

Houses like this don't come up for sale very often in our area and we had a very specific idea of what we wanted, so we do hope it can be resolved.

@TheSnowyOwl no this isnt our first purchase, the last one we made was completed in 12 weeks, we obviously knew this one would be longer as there are different things to factor in with this one.

We wouldn't mind doing that, its just the uncertainty of everything again now that is pushing me over the edge, there has been a number of other issues i haven't mentioned in my original post, which we have overcome then something else always seems to crop up...

House prices are on the decrease in our area now so the seller is aware its in her best interest for this sale to go through rather than have to put it back on the market

The reality is that it won’t be done by the end of next month so pull out now and look elsewhere. Let the seller know that if they sort out the issues to make it the house you want to buy before you have committed to another sale, you might be back. You should know that no matter how stroppy you are to your solicitor, you can’t impact their solicitor if they are being unresponsive. Solicitors tend to ignore each other when they don’t have an update.

@TheSnowyOwl We have 8 weeks until the offer expires, if expedited the land registry will look at amendments within 10 days so it is possible..

We can always reapply for the mortgage that isn't an issue but we really didn't want to have to as that will add another 4 weeks on to what has already felt like forever 😖

Are you sure it's a mistake with the map and not just the seller didn't include that section of field in the purchase?

@Crazycatlady83 We agreed the plan with the seller and estate agent back in October, the seller herself then asked if we could change it to the one we have now which is the one which we agreed too and that is the one that was sent to our solicitor by the sellers solicitor for us to confirm was correct for searches and things.

Could you get a copy of the OCE for the entire field to see what has happened to the other half? You can do a index map search for this.

Then if the portion of the field has been transferred to a different title number but in the name of your seller, can exchange on the two different title numbers and then merge the title after completion?

Not sure if that's possible or how that would sit with your mortgage company though!

@Crazycatlady83I could do that I suppose.

I had looked on the land registry to check whether there was a separate title using the postcode and the only new entry for that area is the title plan we received

These are the images for reference, first being the title plan and the second being the plan we agreed.

Not quite sure I understand.
Do you want to actually pull out of the purchase or just threaten to pull out with a view to what?
Do you want to proceed with this amount of land or not? Would you happy with a discount? There has been a considerably delay and the market has also been falling during that time in most areas. If this runs past August, which it probably will if you proceed, you will probably get a less favourable mortgage offer too.
You need to figure out what outcome you want and then chase that.
The sellers feelings need to be at the bottom of your priority list. They are irrelevant in this situation where the delays has been entirely on their side.

@rainingsnoring I want them to just realise we are not going to wait forever which they seem to think we will…
no we will only proceed if we have the amount of land that was agreed the sale will definitely be off if it’s a case of we can’t the agreed amount.
We are in quite a strong position mortgage wise so have access to good rates as the ltv is below 50%.
I completely agree with you I have had enough of tip toeing round it on the basis that we may or may not be able to purchase more land in future.

Then you need to inform the agent of this or ask your solicitor to communicate it to their solicitor.
Tell them that you will withdraw if you a) do not get the amount of land agreed and b) complete by x date. Then stick to it.