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If you need professional legal advice regarding voluntary first registration, the land registry, or anything to do with residential property, please contact Myerson Solicitors on:
Voluntary first registration is to voluntarily register your residential property for the first time at HM Land Registry.
Registration of your property at the Land Registry is the official recording of your property ownership with the Land Registry's Land Register, which is the official ownership list for property in England and Wales.
Historically, all land in England and Wales was unregistered. However, the Land Registration Act 1925 introduced compulsory registration of land with the Land Registry.
The Land Registration Act 1925 was phased until 1990 when any trigger events to a property, such as a sale or mortgage, sparked a first registration.
The Land Registry aims to achieve 'comprehensive registration' by 2030, that is, for most of the land in England and Wales to be registered.
The Land Registry acknowledges that there will always be some land where the owners are difficult to identify, which is why it aims to achieve 'comprehensive' rather than 'total' registration.
Nevertheless, this is an ambitious goal and, therefore, is heavily reliant upon voluntary first registrations.
A solicitor can quickly search the Land Registry's business portal to confirm whether your property is registered and if there are any pending applications against it. Every registered property is assigned a unique title number.
The public can also visit the gov.uk website to access Land Registry documents, where a copy of your property's title register can be obtained for a small fee, which is currently £3.00.
If your property is not revealed as registered when you conduct the above search, do not panic! A voluntary first registration can rectify this.
It is also possible to leave your property as it is, unregistered, and sell it as an unregistered property when you come to sell, but this could cause additional costs and delay at the time.
If your property is unregistered, your ownership is only documented in your paper title deeds and not stored centrally at the Land Registry.
Your property is likely unregistered if it has not been subjected to any trigger events since 1990.
Therefore, it is prudent to instruct a property solicitor to deal with your first registration as soon as possible rather than wait for one of these events.
There are a multitude of benefits of voluntary first registration, which are set out below:
You can register your property yourself with the Land Registry, and there is guidance on the gov.uk website that you might find helpful.
However, this is a tricky process, and it is difficult to understand all the legal terms or to satisfy all of the Land Registry's requirements, so it is best to instruct a solicitor to deal with this for you to ensure that all the correct documentation and information is submitted to the Land Registry to avoid the application being rejected by the Land Registry or the property being registered incorrectly.
Your solicitor will need you to verify your identity with them and supply the original deeds to the property or let them know where these are stored so they can request them on your behalf.
Your solicitor will then examine and collate the relevant documents, complete the Land Registry application enclosing all the supporting evidence to show the Land Registry that you are the owner of the property or the person entitled to have the property registered in your name and arrange for the relevant registration fee to be paid.
Suppose the Land Registry raise any requisitions (requests for information) about the application or supporting evidence. In that case, your solicitor will deal with these on your behalf but may need further information from you to satisfy the Land Registry's requisitions.
The Land Registry has special requirements for these circumstances.
The Land Registry requests that you provide the following information:
Timescales depend greatly on the Land Registry processing times at that current time.
Once an application for first registration has been submitted to the Land Registry, it will aim to complete your registration within fourteen months.
There are some limited circumstances where you can apply to have your application expedited by the Land Registry, but there is no guarantee.
Therefore, you should consider this timescale, especially if you plan to sell your property soon.
By taking a proactive approach now, you will avoid any potential delays to your transaction.
If you need professional legal advice regarding voluntary first registration, the land registry, or anything to do with residential property, please contact Myerson Solicitors on: