What has happened to my house!?
Discussion
I have (or I think I have) a buy to let house in Reading, which I have owned since 2009. It has had a mortgage on it with Halifax since 2009 and paid off in 2024. It is a Freehold terraced house. No alterations in my time, nothing.
I need to prove ownership to Reading Borough Council, as part of their HMO licence application. I went on to the Land Registry to obtain my Title Deeds, but when I enter the address, it says there are no known records....
I then contacted Halifax to see if they could help, and they gave me the Title Deed number, which I could then do a search on the Land Registry. I downloaded my Title Deeds, but it says on it "Closed Freehold" and on the 20th September 2013, the Register was closed. No other information. Gulp.
I have spoken with the Land Registry today, and they are investigating.....in the meantime, I am left wondering if I have been scammed out of the ownership of a house......!
I am fairly relaxed, as I'm sure no transfer of ownership could have happened, as there was a bank involved, or am I being naive?
Hoping I get a call from Land Registry before the day is out saying it is an admin error....In the meantime, my house officially doesn't exist at the moment.....
I need to prove ownership to Reading Borough Council, as part of their HMO licence application. I went on to the Land Registry to obtain my Title Deeds, but when I enter the address, it says there are no known records....
I then contacted Halifax to see if they could help, and they gave me the Title Deed number, which I could then do a search on the Land Registry. I downloaded my Title Deeds, but it says on it "Closed Freehold" and on the 20th September 2013, the Register was closed. No other information. Gulp.
I have spoken with the Land Registry today, and they are investigating.....in the meantime, I am left wondering if I have been scammed out of the ownership of a house......!
I am fairly relaxed, as I'm sure no transfer of ownership could have happened, as there was a bank involved, or am I being naive?
Hoping I get a call from Land Registry before the day is out saying it is an admin error....In the meantime, my house officially doesn't exist at the moment.....
Edited by alfabeat on Friday 12th June 14:44
Note that this is why it is worth signing up for the land registry activity reports.
I suspect admin error.
Given it seems to coincide with when you bought the place, worth checking with the solicitor/conveyancing agent you used at the time as well as chasing the land registry...
edit: misread original post, so original comment below is probably wrong.
There are a few possibilities on how it happened; Plausibly for a terraced property another house in the terrace was split into flats (or knocked through) and someone updated the wrong registry entry... Another option is someone closed the record when the bank updated the land registry deeds once the mortgage was paid off to remove the charge against the property...
(AFAIK the land registry doesn't actually do much validation of what is submitted to them - insist its done in a sufficiently awkward way that almost everyone hires solicitors/conveyancers to do the paperwork and when it goes wrong, malpractice insurer pays to fix it...)
I suspect admin error.
Given it seems to coincide with when you bought the place, worth checking with the solicitor/conveyancing agent you used at the time as well as chasing the land registry...
edit: misread original post, so original comment below is probably wrong.
There are a few possibilities on how it happened; Plausibly for a terraced property another house in the terrace was split into flats (or knocked through) and someone updated the wrong registry entry... Another option is someone closed the record when the bank updated the land registry deeds once the mortgage was paid off to remove the charge against the property...
(AFAIK the land registry doesn't actually do much validation of what is submitted to them - insist its done in a sufficiently awkward way that almost everyone hires solicitors/conveyancers to do the paperwork and when it goes wrong, malpractice insurer pays to fix it...)
Edited by qwerty360 on Friday 12th June 14:26
Edited by qwerty360 on Friday 12th June 14:30
A few houses down, I think 2 adjacent houses were amalgamated into one around this time (2013), so yes, it is a possibility that they entered the wrong house numbers. Seems ridiculous that this could happen though? Surely, having a charge on the property, the bank would have been notified if this was the case and they would have prevented it from happening or at least alerted me there was an issue?
qwerty360 said:
Note that this is why it is worth signing up for the land registry activity reports.
I suspect admin error.
Given it seems to coincide with when you bought the place, worth checking with the solicitor/conveyancing agent you used at the time as well as chasing the land registry...
Sorry, I have edited my OP, as the date the register was closed was 2013 not 2009, so 4 years after I purchased the house.I suspect admin error.
Given it seems to coincide with when you bought the place, worth checking with the solicitor/conveyancing agent you used at the time as well as chasing the land registry...
Not looking forward to unravelling this mess.....
If you don't live in the area, and want someone to go and see if there's anything unexpected going on there, like signs of occupation when there shouldn't be, or you want someone to send you some photos of the place... let me know and I'd happily pop round over the weekend to have a look for you.
Skodillac said:
If you don't live in the area, and want someone to go and see if there's anything unexpected going on there, like signs of occupation when there shouldn't be, or you want someone to send you some photos of the place... let me know and I'd happily pop round over the weekend to have a look for you.
That is very kind of you, but I shall go down there this weekend to take a look. It is currently rented out to students who are moving out. I did swing by and have a look from the outside a few weeks ago, and all is normal (it hasn't been knocked into next door :-)!Both the Land Registry and solicitors handling sales can make cockups. I wouldn't worry about fraud just yet
10 years ago I discovered that a flat owned by my Dad since 1970 showed in the Land Register as still belonging to the long defunct builders.
The accompanying plan showed that he also owned the stairs making it impossible for the owners of the flats above to get access to their property without apparently going through his!
It all got sorted out with the help of a solicitor.
10 years ago I discovered that a flat owned by my Dad since 1970 showed in the Land Register as still belonging to the long defunct builders.
The accompanying plan showed that he also owned the stairs making it impossible for the owners of the flats above to get access to their property without apparently going through his!
It all got sorted out with the help of a solicitor.
Edited by mac96 on Friday 12th June 16:17
mac96 said:
The accompanying plan showed that he also owned the stairs making it impossible for the owners of the flats above to get access to their property without apparently going through his!
It all got sorted out with the help of a solicitor.
Toll gate on the stairs?It all got sorted out with the help of a solicitor.
Nice.
Could probably sell it to a private equity infrastructure fund.
walm said:
mac96 said:
The accompanying plan showed that he also owned the stairs making it impossible for the owners of the flats above to get access to their property without apparently going through his!
It all got sorted out with the help of a solicitor.
Toll gate on the stairs?It all got sorted out with the help of a solicitor.
Nice.
Could probably sell it to a private equity infrastructure fund.
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