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?

This is either a Land Registry cock up on the Filed Plan or a different plan was submitted for first registration by the solicitors and that was adopted by the Land Registry.

It’s not really the Seller’s fault. You can threaten to withdraw, fine. But what will that achieve? You’ll need to go and find another property. It doesn’t sound like you are in a rush. The plan it will be resolved soon/eventually by the correction of the plan. Your mortgage offer would almost certainly be with reference to the originally agreed plan and contingent on first registration at HMLR with Title Absolute of the agreed plot and all required rights.

@rainingsnoring yes I have contacted them last week and raised all concerns so they are aware, this what I want to do is give them a deadline

@MadeInChorley no I completely understand it’s not the sellers fault which is why we’re sympathetic towards her, it’s been hard for her to actually sell the property due to sentimental attachment.

We have 8 weeks before out mortgage offer expires and we are a family of 4 living in a static caravan currently, with 1 child age 2 having to share a bedroom with us so we getting fed up with our living situation hence why we would rather complete sooner rather than later and the property also requires complete renovation before we can move in 😣

yes I have said to the agent that our mortgage is based on that 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

We had the same with my late, ex MIL's place - a family property, weird deals had been done with neighbours o ver the years based on a handshake, so the Land Registry details were a mess

The point is that we sorted it out before marketing the property, and I have to wonder why your vendor hasn't done the same. Their solicitor's reluctance to address the issue would worry me, as would the possibility she'd be only too glad to "sell you some more land" ... only this time it could be land you should have had in the first place

Instruct your solicitor to formally notify the seller, that unless they can complete the sale by < set deadline date>, with full and correct Land registry in place, you WILL pull out of the purchase.

Your solicitor sounds like an incompetent idiot btw.

Why do you wish to speak to,your solicitors boss. That’s ludicrous. It will have taken your solicitor likely in the region of 7 years to qualify, law isn’t like a normal company. If the law society deemed your solicitor qualified, you don’t need to go above them.

🙄

That’s a very weird statement. Are you suggesting anyone with professional qualifications is above being a cock up? There’s plenty of medical negligence cases out there, for example. There’s a legal ombudsman so that means, shock horror, sometimes solicitors mess up and/or aren’t great at their jobs.

@Peonyfun as I said above, there is a much reducing number of unregistered land transactions, owing to the amount of time since compulsory registration came in. If someone finished their 7 yr training within the last 10 years, they may have only ever seen a handful (or none, depending on the firm) of these transactions. So quit with the knee jerk response- OP needs someone who is familiar with this increasingly unusual type of transaction. And Fwiw, the law society deems an extraordinary number of poorly qualified people to the profession, particularly those who did training contracts during covid- just because a person ticks a box doesn’t mean they are immediately excellent in all areas of the law. And if you are a cocky 2yr pqe and think you know it all, check your insurance.

@Peonyfun because as soon as I raised my concerns with her she said “she would need to ask her supervision to look into it” that made me think as @Vermin stated that she hasn’t dealt with this kind of issue 🤷‍♀️

@Puzzledandpissedoff so it is only the main house that was sold off previously with a piece of the land and this is registered with the land registry so it was just a case of registering the remaining land with the bungalow..

This is what we can’t understand surely her solicitor had at some point looked over the deeds and should of advised the seller that it should be registered before being put on the market but hey ho

I think you’ve been far too patient until now.

I've got no help with solicitors sorry, but hope you manage to get it sorted. Just wanted to say that it is a beautiful part of the world - I grew up there. My mum still lives down the hill on the marsh. Use to know the family who rented the big house (very!) back in the day. It was a palaver getting to school though.

Good luck!

All you'd be doing is threatening to withdraw at this stage. IMO, the vendor should have ensured that what was going up for sale had been registered with the Land Registry before putting it on the market, not afterwards..

I'd also like to give your other half's head a wobble!

surely her solicitor had at some point looked over the deeds and should of advised the seller that it should be registered before being put on the market but hey ho

You'd think so, wouldn't you? Though I suppose it depends whether she queried this at all before marketing the place, or just somehow hoped it would "all work out okay" - which really isn't an option with land

Anyway the options seem to be either incompetence or a wish to gouge some more out of you for the land you should have had, so without doubt you're doing the right thing in being firm with her

@ThankmelaterOkay I know we were only do patient due to it being in the hands of the land registry for months as we knew requisitions were going to be raised.. but we naively thought as soon as the registration was complete we’d get our completion date 😞

@LookItsMeAgain she wasn’t made aware of the issue with deeds until our solicitor raised them so I don’t believe it’s her fault, people by unregistered property all the time. Our first purchase was an unregistered property and we did it’s first registration .. we didn’t realise how complicated it gets when it comes to land as well 😞

@Saisong oh wow small world! I’ve lived on the island all my life and never knew the area existed until we went to view the property! It really does live up to its name!

Thank you! There really isn’t anything on the market that lives up to it so I’m hoping we do!

Well we were suppose to receive a phone call today about the title…. They must of lost our number or something 🤷‍♀️ as I’m still waiting… however coincidentally my partner was travelling past the house today and the vendor herself flagged him down (he has a sign written van) and they spoke… I’m yet to here what was said as I couldn’t hear thing due to bad signal so I will wait anxiously for him to get home from work now 😂