Securing your home, your biggest asset at HM Land Registry is a good idea. If you have been in your home for a great number of years (or you know someone else that has) and there has been no change in ownership or mortgage dealings, it is probably classed as unregistered land. Whilst this is not a problem in itself, there are considerable benefits to be had by volunteering for a First Registration.
Since the 1990s land registration became compulsory and crucially provides the owner with the security of a State-backed Guarantee of legal title such that any sale, or mortgage dealings will proceed in a much more straightforward way. Here are some more thoughts to digest:
- Title deeds are often returned to the owner when a mortgage debt has been repaid, if you have yours, where will you store them? We can help
- Putting your Title deeds in a safe place can often result in them being lost, and if you have to go to a Licensed Conveyancer to have them reconstructed, the cost will be significant, so contact us for safe document storage
- By going through a Voluntary First Registration, the process will expose any deficiencies in the title deeds pack; for example it is very often the case that although the owner may tell you that they paid off the mortgage years ago, the original Mortgage Deed is found in the deeds pack but without a receipt by the lender. This means of course that any sale or dealing in the property is impossible and in the worst case will scupper a sale. Some buyers may be unwilling to wait and the sale may be aborted
- The First Registration process is by far the slowest Land Registry job, taking some 3-5 months, so if it has got to be done as part of the sale process anyway, you may as well get it done now; it is no wonder we all get frustrated with house sale/purchase delays
- When the first of a couple dies, and family takes care of the deceased estate, they very often forget about changing the legal title of the house meaning the Will cannot be proved in normal timescales; more frustration I am sure we have all experienced
- If you own your home as tenants in common(which is quite popular these days) and your severance deed (and therefore the Form A Restriction) is not recorded at the Land Registry, then your carefully drafted Wills could fail as a consequence leading to the wrong things happening
- Inaccurate Plans on old deeds may not correctly show the full extent of the land, or indeed may be confused as to the boundaries with neighbours
- Squatters Rights – where a property remains unregistered it is much easier for third parties to attempt to obtain “squatters rights” over that property as they are able to make an application to the Land Registry for legal ownership via adverse possession. With registered land, however, it is virtually impossible for anybody to acquire rights over a property without the true owner’s knowledge. This is particularly useful for open land in country and semi-rural areas.
- If an owner wishes to develop land it is easy to demonstrate ownership by downloading an up to date copy of the title and plan.
And finally if an
owner voluntarily registers land, there is a genuine saving to be had, for example, if a property is worth 250,000, there is a discount of 70.00 off the normal registration fee, hence 200 would be payable.
If you have unregistered land and now understand the benefits of Voluntary First Registration, we can provide the service to you quickly and easily through our tried and trusted source for a fair fee, so what are you waiting for? Contact Us now.
