When the Land Registration Act 2002 came into force on 13th October 2003 we were no longer required to produce Land Certificates or Charge Certificates as evidence of your ownership of land, title to which was already registered at the Land Registry. This is called dematerialisation. Prior to 13th October 2003 if you didn’t have a Land or Charge Certificate showing that you were the registered proprietor of the land it proved difficult for you to be able to sell your land and before you could sell your land you needed to swear a statutory declaration stating the circumstances as to how the Landor Charge Certificate came to be lost and this would then have to be submitted to the Land Registry for their consideration before they wouldl issue a replacement Land or Charge Certificate. Thanks to “dematerialisation”, provided the title to your land is registered at the Land Registry then you longer need to produce the Land or Charge Certificate and the land can change hands merely by signature of the owner to a Transfer which has the effect of transferring the land to the buyer. This is because information about all registered land is contained on the Land Registry’s computer system so copies of registered titles can now be obtained very easily and quickly.

This is all well and good if you are selling land which has a dwelling built on it and is known by a postal address with postcode. You can easily find the relevant title number for that property on the Land Registry’s website and obtain a copy of the registered title. However, what if somebody has purchased a separate piece of land after they have purchased the property which now forms part of the back garden to a property but is registered on a separate title. Searching against a postal address will not always identify the title number to that separate piece of land so a search of the index map might then need to be undertaken (at extra cost). This involves downloading a plan of the land concerned and if the title to the land is registered at the Land Registry the search result will reveal the relevant title number. This is all well and good as long as a client remembers to tell his conveyancer that he purchased a separate piece of land after he purchased the house which now forms part of the garden as unless the conveyancer is told this will not always be dealt with as part of the sale. At least in the past when a client was given a Land Certificate to prove ownership of that separate piece of land that client would presumably remember to hand that Land Certificate to his conveyancer and mention this when he comes to sell. As conveyancers we always provide to our purchasing clients a copy of the title plan to a property and ask them to consider this against the physical boundaries on the ground and advise us of any discrepancies. Unfortunately not all clients will check the plan properly and unless they do pieces of land on separate titles can sometimes be overlooked. This is just one example of problems with “dematerialisation” and one that this firm has very recently encountered on behalf of a client purchasing a property.

The property was being sold by a mortgage lender who had a charge on the property and was selling under its power of sale. Having no personal knowledge of the extent of the property the lender’s conveyancers obtained a copy of the registered title by reference to the property address and all was going well until our clients attended our offices to sign the papers. When they were showed the plan they quickly pointed out that part of the back garden was not included in the title. A quick look on google maps confirmed that the back garden was indeed much longer than was shown on the title plan. Of course the mortgage lender’s solicitors could not assist as they had nopersonal knowledge of the property. A search on Land Registry’s website accompanied by a plan subsequently revealed that the land in question had its ownseparate registered title but unfortunately it was still registered in the name of the owners of the property who had purchased the land in 1981. We have no information as to the current whereabouts of those persons but even if we did have that information we would not wish to approach them to transfer the land as potentially they could refuse or they could agree provided they receive some money! We can only assume that when they sold the house itself they omitted to mention to their conveyancer that they also owned a separate piece of land on a separate title so that is possibly how it was overlooked in the first place and it seems that whoever purchased the property before it was repossessed did not realise from the title plan that this did not include the additional piece of land. As there was a deadline to complete on the purchase of the property by our clients they did decide to go ahead and purchase the property based on the title that the lender could transfer and asked us to resolve the issue of the separate piece of land after completion. In that respect we have submitted an application to the Land Registry for registration of title by adverse possession and this application has been supported by statements of truth by our clients but also a statutory declaration from a neighbour who has personal knowledge of the property boundaries for many years. It is therefore hoped that our clients will be registered as proprietors of that piece of land but with a possessory title only.

Whenever we act for a client who is selling a property, prior to exchange of Contracts, we always show that client a copy of the title plan for the property so that they can confirm to us that this correctly reflects the boundaries of the property and hopefully by doing this circumstances as mentioned above can be avoided.