A Disaster Story

Our client was the daughter of the proprietor who sadly lacked capacity, and our client was selling on her behalf to cover her care home fees.

We made a start to our investigations, this led us to establish the property was still an unregistered title. We had to advise our client to locate the original title documents to enable us to sell.

Thankfully the client located all the documents they could find at the property but lived in Essex. They attended the office by appointment after driving to us in order to avoid any risks with the original documents.

In an unregistered title, it is important to have as many of the original title deeds and documents as possible to enable us to establish a good root of title (normally a conveyance or mortgage of at least 15 years) to evidence the proprietor’s ownership and right to sell.

There was a large number of original documents that we had to review to provide the necessary good root and sellers capacity to sell on behalf of her mother.

All the time this was occurring, the clients’ mothers care home fees were racking up. There was suggestion of a charge being entered in the title documents and no receipted notice of the same. Thankfully using our land registry portal searches we were able to evidence no charges being evidenced at the land registry and establish that if any charge still existed the original title documents wouldn’t have been returned to the proprietors (lenders tended to hold title deeds and not release them until the charges were redeemed in unregistered land).

We eventually completed and our clients received the sale proceeds to allow them to pay for their mothers ongoing care and were very happy.

With a unregistered title it is important to seek a lawyer with some experience in this area as it can be more complex and is far less common than the standard residential matter.

Written by

Loren Ringshall.