Altering deeds

[Honeyroar]

We knocked two properties into one a few years ago. All done to building regs etc. We’ve been paying council tax/bills on the new, one property etc, but we want to sell it now. I presume we need to update the deeds, but am not sure how we do it. I’ve also heard rumours that it’s taking a while at the moment.
Does anyone have any experience or advice?

As part of my sale I'm having to sort an anomaly with my plot being two separate deeds, one not registered to anyone but no doubt it's mine by adverse occupation if nothing else. It's a real odd one, the ends of all the gardens in our row of houses are on separate deeds, just the last 10-15ft. There must have been some reason for doing it back then - 1930s.
My solicitor had offered the buyers a swore affidavit (I've lived here decades and had no idea until now) and an indemnity but they insisted the deeds be combined.
You can expedite a change with the Land Registry if you are in the middle of a sale but it still takes as long as it takes. Also LR required that Ordnance Survey do a survey, which seemed strange for 10ft of garden. It's been a month so far and a proposed exchange date has come and gone. I think the buyer's solicitor may have underestimated the time it takes.
You may be able to apply to the LR yourself but probably best to go through a solicitor, using the one you eventually use to sell would make sense. So whether you decide to sell or not I'd get it sorted.

Thanks very much for that. I’m planning to put it up for sale in spring. I’m hoping it will have gone through by then. I think there’s also a slight issue over a boundary of one of our fields and we will probably need a solicitor for that too.

You don’t need to join the titles to sell if it’s just a case of 2 whole titles. The boundary issue will need sorting.

You don't need to particularly you can sell both titles at the same time.

It's not uncommon for someone to have bought a bit of extra garden land or whatever and their property to be listed across two title numbers

Oh sorry just seen the update, yea the boundary issue needs dealing with!

The field won’t be being sold with the house, so it’s not as as urgent to sort out the boundary. I didn’t realise you can sell with two deeds.

You can put something like 4 title numbers on a transfer of whole document (probably more but I’m not in work mode and can’t be bothered to look it up). It’s not unusual.

We did this and I couldn't get the valuation office to merge council tax without merging at the land registry. We also had to talk to house names and numbers for a new offical address listing. Land registry took a few months and is discretionary on their part. If you try doing it yourself you will still need to get id forms set up with solicitors. It isn't that straightforward. I agree that you can transfer mutliple titles but a bank lender might not agree to having their mortgage spread across the titles. Did you sort the utilities also? We needed a road closure for BT and national grid and the water company are only just coming out as the valuation office rebanding went to tribunal. Your transaction will be a lot easier if you sort out the boundary problem and the title before you sell. Lenders could be ok with a bit of extra title but the same house across 2 titles was a massive issue you them in our experience and both properties needed to be mortgage free to merge them.

Yes everything else is done. It’s been registered for council tax for over a decade and the elec is one bill. Water is from a well and we have a septic tank. There’s no boundary problem for the house, that’s a separate issue to do with the house we’re inheriting/moving into. We might want to sell that field separately, so it needs sorting.

That sounds well organised. If the house is across titles I would be concerned that a bank would be reluctant to provide a mortgage. You might want to check with a broker as it was a flat no from the banks to us even though only one title was mortgaged and the second was cash. The existing mortgage company wouldn't even add the other property to their charge for no extra credit on a small mortgage