Land Registry Records

[Clover97]

Hello,

Posting on here in the hopes that someone has been through something similar or has a good understanding of how Land Registry works.

We are due to exchange contracts in just over a week’s time. However, we discovered recently that LR records on our property hadn’t yet been updated since our purchase. Our solicitor has been really diligent and put in a request to expedite this but still has yet to hear back. I’ve read about long backlogs at LR and I’m very anxious that this will hold up our sale. Does anyone have any insight or similar experience? Do we need to prepare ourselves to wait a long time or should this hopefully be done fairly soon? Thank you.

Expedition essentially reduces the wait time before the pending application is processed. If the application is to update an already registered title/property then expedition generally means it’s considered within 2 weeks of expedition.
Thereafter it’s all about the application being in order and/or whether wider checks etc are needed.
Your solicitor will know when it’s been processed and if ‘more’ is needed.
So it shouldn’t be a long wait providing everything is in order

@LandRegRep1862 thank you so much - that is really helpful to know. Our solicitor confirmed on Friday that nothing had been processed so I'm assuming that LR haven't been able to look at it yet. Everything on our side seems to be in order thankfully so I'm hoping that as it's been expedited, it should be looked at fairly soon? Here's to hoping!

Your registration doesn't have to have been completed though it's much easier if is has been. If it hasn't, the buyer's side can see that the application has been lodged and has priority and your sol can send over a copy of the application form which was lodged.

All a Q of when was it expedited as to how soon is assessed. Sounds like your solicitor is on top of things but if you want me to check then we do have a ‘support forum’ at HMLR where you can register/login and share the title number/postal address and we can take a look just to make sure everything as you’d hope.

Very true although my experiences in the last 10 years or so is that this isn’t always something conveyancers/lenders run with nowadays - some can and do but others may employ a more risk averse process or a Y/N next step process that relies on a Y without additional work/checks/consideration.
The whole registration, conveyancing and lending process relies on the basic tenet you refer to. But that’s changed for some due in part a more digitally reliant process as well as risk averse systems that say N instead of Y for example

That’s fantastic - thank you so much! I believe our solicitor put in the request just over a week ago so we are still within the 2 week expedition time frame you mentioned. If we don’t hear back this week from LR, I will register to get more support.

@GU24Mum do you mean that the sale could still go through? That’s really interesting to know, thank you! I think our buyer and the solicitors won’t want to risk going ahead until all boxes are ticked off however. Looks like we just have to cross our fingers and hope LR are able to process it before our exchange date! 🙏

Hi OP, there's no reason legally why it can't go through but I also take @LandRegRep1862's point that in the days of very junior people who can tend to take a "computer says no" approach, your buyer's sols might push back.

We've recently been through a 12 week wait for an expedited change to the deeds on the house I was selling. It took so long because the LR insisted on checking if my neighbours had any objections. The LR were pretty helpful when I rang them but did say non-expedited request were taking 18 months to 2 years to process. Which will surely mean this will only get worse as more sell without the deeds in their name. So more and more will request the faster service - further delaying the normal service forcing more to request expedition. The LR really need to get a plan in place to sort this, or it will just keep getting worse