What evidence do you have to produce to make a first registration of land?
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My friend needs to sell her house and I would like to try and buy it.
she has lived there since 1978. She acquired the house in 1988 after her divorce. She financed to buy her ex out. She has refinanced since but for some reason none of the lenders have made the first registration and no charges are registered. She has a sub prime lender who has the deeds. She doesn’t appear to have anything that would evidence her title. She is in arrears with her mortgage and has absolutely no money at all for fees of any sort. I know that the land registry will charge her about £160 but that’s if she gets far enough to make the registration. She needs to know what documentation she needs to try and locate and if there is a way you can make a first registration without documentary evidence. She seems to be unable to get papers from her old solicitor who dealt with the divorce due to non payment of their bill(!). As it was in 1988 they may not have kept the file, especially if she didn’t pay them!
Quick House Sale
1 Comments
August 21st, 2009 at 7:45 am
You can make an application for first registration if you have lost your deeds or if they’ve been destroyed.
However, if you know exactly where they are, i.e. with a lender, you’ll need their co-operation in order to register the land.
Your friend should get in contact with her lender and ask them to lodge a voluntary first registration application on her behalf. She should make it clear that she has a potential purchaser who requires the land to be registered before purchase. They will probably charge her an administration fee, but they may be willing to add it to her loan if they feel that it (and the arrears) may be paid off quickly.
Bear in mind also that she may have had legal aid when she divorced her husband, and this may also be a charge on the property.
Good luck with this. If you intend to buy the house, make sure you have good legal representation yourself - there may be more burdens that she has forgotten!