Dot the i’s and cross the t’s before you pick up the keys

Dot the i’s and cross the t’s before you pick up the keys

By Michelle Hughes

Published: 03 Mar 2023

Details of this Case Study have been changed to protect the privacy of our clients.

I recently acted for Samantha in the sale of her property and the purchase of a new property with her partner. The relatively straightforward transaction rapidly changed when I discovered that the lease was still in the name of the previous owners. When she had bought the property Samantha had used an online conveyancing service as opposed to a local firm of solicitors, but they had not correctly registered her purchase with the Land Registry.

She had been living in her property for over 5 years without knowing that she was in breach of the terms of her mortgage and that, without registration of her lease, the flat was not worth anywhere near what she had paid for it.

Samantha was now getting married and moving in with her fiancé and the discovery of this previous blunder by the online conveyancing service meant that her current transaction was likely to take a lot longer and cost a lot more money. Fortunately her buyer was understanding and could accommodate the delays so her transaction, although delayed, went through as expected.

It is not uncommon for our team to pick up the pieces when conveyancing goes wrong with another company. Often the original conveyancing company have gone out of business and so the client has no way of claiming back their fees. We were able to locate the original landlord for the property and negotiate the proper registration so that Samantha’s transaction could continue and luckily her buyer was patient. In the end the decision to use an online service was a false economy as Samantha had to pay further legal fees to put right the mess. Using a solicitor protects you as if a solicitors firm goes out of business they have to pay for insurance to protect their past clients from any issue that may arise.