Residential Conveyancing in Surrey and an anomaly with registered property titles

Conveyancing in Surrey became easier once most property titles were registered at the land registry. The register is intended to include details of all legal matters affecting each property, so that buyers will know exactly what affects any home.

However, when carrying out Conveyancing in Surrey, Conveyancing Solicitors quite often find that the register mentions documents, but with a note that 'neither the original nor any certified copy was supplied at the time of first registration'.

This means that an old title deed containing covenants and restrictions affecting a property was not available when the title was registered, but the land is still subject to whatever matters were contained in the missing document.

Restrictions were often imposed when land was being sold for building. When individual houses were subsequently sold, each sale deed would contain a provision that the property was subject to the restrictions 'contained in a Conveyance dated the [date] and made between, etc...

A copy of this document would have been provided to the buyer's Conveyancers at the time, but might not have been certified as being a true copy of the original, or it could have been mislaid.

As a result, many property titles do not include full details of these covenants, and the registry does not have a copy of the original document which imposed them. This means that buyers will have no idea what the restrictions are, so they could for example be prevented from extending the house.

Do missing covenants cause a problem?

Conveyancer Dawn Thomas was carrying out the Conveyancing in Surrey for the buyer of a freehold house on Guildford Park Road, Guildford, Surrey, GU7. The sellers' agents were Haarts at 204 London Road, Burpham, Guildford, Surrey, GU4 7JS.

The documentation revealed that there was a missing conveyance. Generally speaking, it is unlikely that there will be anything in such documents which would cause any problems for purchasers. This situation regularly occurs when transacting older houses, and it is unlikely that anyone would now take action to enforce any restrictive provisions in old deeds. Unfortunately, this cannot be entirely discounted, and cases do arise from time to time.

Dawn therefore asked the sellers' Property Lawyers to confirm that their client would pay the premium for an indemnity insurance policy, which would cover any loss or expense. Having checked with their clients, they ascertained that such a policy had already been taken out when they originally bought the home, and the benefit of this could be transferred to the new buyers on completion.

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