Page 2 | Should houses be allowed to be sold when they’re not registered with the land registry?

jimmyeatworld · 2025-08-06T10:35:08+00:00

Because I don’t think they should be put on the market until it’s officially registered with the LR. This is more of a rant because I’m so sick of my sellers solicitors taking their sweet time to do anything. It took them 6 weeks to even look at preparing draft contracts and only then did they realise the house wasn’t registered. So who can I moan about, the estate agents for agreeing to market a house that wasn’t registered ? The elderly sellers who never really had any reason to register their property they’ve been in since the 50’s, or the solicitors for not getting on the draft contracts sooner and then realising ?

SunnySideDeepDown · 07/08/2025 20:11

jimmyeatworld · 07/08/2025 08:28

We’re in Staffordshire.

I think what’s getting to me more than anything is how slow the sellers solicitors are and that’s worrying me once this first registration is done (🤞) that they’ll be just as slow replying to enquiries from searches etc. I just want to complete before the end of November, which when I say that it’s like of course you will! But ss so far have been really slow and all the estate agent says is they’re snowed under, super busy, making out they can’t cope which doesn’t fill me with confidence!!

End of November will come around very quickly, that’s not long at all in my experience to get everything done, especially in an old property where strange covenants can appear.

Your solicitors should be chasing the vendors solicitors, are they?

I would be calling and emailing your solicitor and estate agent twice a week for updates - become annoying (yet friendly). It’s the only way to get people prioritising you.

Have you told everyone in the chain that your can’t extend your mortgage offer? Most people will assume you can so it maybe best to tell them so they’re speedy. Why can’t you extend it?

Original poster

jimmyeatworld · 07/08/2025 20:18

RigIt · 07/08/2025 19:04

You need to get the estate agent to start badgering everyone (and ideally the sellers too if possible). Tell the estate agent your deadline, and that you’ll have to pull out if it’s not met and you are concerned about how long house registration takes and you want all the other searches etc getting going asap while the registration is going through (some solicitors seem to do things one at a time for some unknown reason) - call them everyday or every couple of days. You have to give people a reason to get their finger out, and also get on people’s nerves sadly.

Plus have a conversation with your solicitor to see if the house can be purchased without your seller registering first. As it sounds like this might be a possibility and would speed things up considerably so I would be pursuing that.

My solicitors have said they can’t do the searches until they receive the draft contracts is this true?

The first registration was abit more tricky because the sellers lost their deeds, they told the estate agent that their solicitors had them, and I do believe them because the lady went to school with one of the sons who owned the solicitors at the time ! Anyway, she told me she had found a copy of the deeds but it was unsigned, their solicitors said with that they were confident we would get a title absolute.
Since all that and the lack of updates I’ve now been told that they expected the land registry to send out a requisition due to a lack of things to go on. So which is it?! Tomorrow I’m going to ring my solicitors, as they haven’t been pushing them either. The estate agents have been okay but I’m starting to feel like I’m just pissing everyone off but this is massively important to us.
No idea why we can’t get an extension, the broker just said he had already asked Halifax the question but not to worry as we’d just apply for another mortgage elsewhere, but I really don’t want to have to do that !!

OP posts:

Original poster

jimmyeatworld · 07/08/2025 20:20

SuffolkBargeWoman · 07/08/2025 14:04

But they were 'superslow' getting the paperwork together because they needed to get it from the sellers.
You do understand that they can only go at the speed of their clients, don't you?
It's not going to be them answering search enquiries, it's the seller.

Incorrect, I’m in touch with the seller weekly and she took the paperwork down within 2 days of them asking for it, it sat on a desk for 2 weeks !!

OP posts:

Nosleepforthismum · 07/08/2025 20:50

Hi OP, I used to be a conveyancer in my pre-kids years. My experience of first registrations is that some are way more complex than others and will take a fair bit of legal time to go through all the deeds and submit an application for first registration the LR is likely to accept. The fact the original deeds are missing may be part of the reason the LR have raised a requisition. Requisitions tend to be reasons why the LR cannot complete the application at that time and what they require in order to do so. Sometimes these are straightforward and other times not. However, the application has been submitted which is most of the work so please be reassured that the seller’s solicitor has been doing the work behind the scenes. Requisitions have a time limit on them too so they will be trying to gather the evidence or documents required in the meantime.

Your solicitor can order searches and can even check the title now but it’s more efficient for them to let the sellers solicitor do the bulk of the work and wait for everything to be registered before looking at any documents. They could request a plan from the sellers solicitor and order searches against that but they’d advise you to wait so you aren’t out of pocket in case the property is unable to be registered or there is an issue with the boundary lines for example. I wouldn’t stress though, searches come back in a couple of weeks usually and it’s only the beginning of August.

I know this is really frustrating for you but solicitors are very good at turning things around very quickly when everything is in hand. It sounds as though it is progressing so try not to worry too much.

Original poster

jimmyeatworld · 12/08/2025 13:02

Nosleepforthismum · 07/08/2025 20:50

Hi OP, I used to be a conveyancer in my pre-kids years. My experience of first registrations is that some are way more complex than others and will take a fair bit of legal time to go through all the deeds and submit an application for first registration the LR is likely to accept. The fact the original deeds are missing may be part of the reason the LR have raised a requisition. Requisitions tend to be reasons why the LR cannot complete the application at that time and what they require in order to do so. Sometimes these are straightforward and other times not. However, the application has been submitted which is most of the work so please be reassured that the seller’s solicitor has been doing the work behind the scenes. Requisitions have a time limit on them too so they will be trying to gather the evidence or documents required in the meantime.

Your solicitor can order searches and can even check the title now but it’s more efficient for them to let the sellers solicitor do the bulk of the work and wait for everything to be registered before looking at any documents. They could request a plan from the sellers solicitor and order searches against that but they’d advise you to wait so you aren’t out of pocket in case the property is unable to be registered or there is an issue with the boundary lines for example. I wouldn’t stress though, searches come back in a couple of weeks usually and it’s only the beginning of August.

I know this is really frustrating for you but solicitors are very good at turning things around very quickly when everything is in hand. It sounds as though it is progressing so try not to worry too much.

Hi thank you for this.
can I ask you a question- why would the LR request a second statement of truth ? This is what we’ve been told was in the requisition

OP posts: