What would you do?

[BeauticianNotMagician81]

We have offered on a house that has never been registered and the agent has no idea how long it will take. From a google search it could take a year or more.

Our seller wouldn't really shift on price and it's at the top of our budget £300,000. It wouldn't usually be top of our budget if we were talking a year ago but lending criteria is so strict. Since we offered 6 weeks ago, nothing has happened. We don't even have contract. Now our broker is saying affordability fits but both lenders he has tried want a 15% deposit. This would pretty much wipe out our savings. The house needs work, mostly cosmetic and eventually we would do an extension. It's a good price for the area we live in as prices aren't really dropping around here. It would be the forever home.

In the time since we offered mortgage rates have gone up 3 times. Our mortgage would be just shy of £1400 which is our current rent.

Would you go for it or build up the savings a bit and stay in rental to see what happens next year?

What do you mean by hasn’t been registered? With land registry? I’m guessing it isn’t a new build as you said it needs work.

So do you not even have a memorandum of sale from the estate agents so that you can apply for a mortgage? Have you chased them?

I doubt you’ll get a mortgage offer which will be valid for a year anyway. That could work out in your favour if rates drop, but obviously the opposite is true if not.

I wouldn’t be very hopeful in your shoes and would definitely keep looking / be happy to stay in rented for longer if it’s affordable.

@Suupertato sorry yes with land registry. It's 60 years old. I'm not very hopeful. We do love the house but aren't sure it's worth the hassle and feels like a bad time to have little to no savings left 😫

This is the second property I have heard of this week where its been put up for sale unregistered. Seems odd to me, as you say the registration process can take up to a year. If I was selling I would take responsibility for registration first and then try to sell without pulling people in to a protracted process. At least put the application in. I assume they even have all the relevant deeds? The other one I heard of didn't even have this and needed insurance. In reality nothing can happen approaching a transfer until its registered so the contract won't be needed for quite some time. The question is how far away are they with the application to register- is it with the land registry? They would then need to be proactive chasing it up. Does sound like this transaction has the potential to keep you waiting - is the property really worth it? Nothing to be gained I suppose from pulling out and the sellers may get their act together but I would still be looking around at other properties if it was me

@CountryCob thank you. I think we are going to see what our solicitors come back with on Monday. We need some clarity as to how long land registry will take and if it can be expedited. If it can't be then I think we will pull out.

It's so stressful. There are just so many different timelines online. The solicitors don't seem to know anymore than the estate agent does.

Do you mean it's just never been registered electronically?
If the solicitors have the paper deeds it makes absolutely no difference.

We bought a house last year of a similar age and it's fine. We had to pay a bit extra (I think about £250) for it to be registered and it's still not on the land registry yet but it didn't cause any issues.

It'll only be a pain if you're planning to resell quickly.

@GoodChat yes I think so. So the vendor has the original paper deeds but it's not online on Land registry. None of the houses on the road are on land registry, although none have been sold in recent years. We plan on being there for 10 years plus.

Honestly it makes no difference to the process in that case

There is no need for the property to be registered before you buy, and to require this would significantly delay matters, due to backlogs at land registry.

The seller's solicitor should be able to evidence title the 'old fashioned' way and your solicitor can then undertake the first registration process once you have purchased.

The issue, however, is that both sides will need to ensure they have lawyers that understand/have experience in dealing with unregistered property transactions - many younger lawyers today (particularly if just licensed conveyancers) will never have dealt with such matters!

Presumably the property has been in the same ownership for a significant period of time (I think compulsory registration has been in place across England at least since around 1990). It might take slightly longer, but if the sellers have paper copies of their deeds and can evidence their continuous ownership, then there's no reason why you couldn't continue with this house

@GoodChat oh really, thank you. So it's just the vendors solicitors being a pain. Our solicitor said it can all be done after purchase but the vendors solicitor are adamant it has to be done prior. To be fair they haven't sent over contracts or anything despite being hounded so I think they are just useless.

You're probably right. Its been a year next week since we completed and we're not registered. The house we sold on the same day was already electronically registered and their purchase only got updated on the land registry a few days ago. There are huge delays