Instructing a Solicitor and Checking Your Documents

This is a cautionary, real life story....... 

 

We have just helped the sellers of this property in Brockworth with their recent house move and it once again acted as a reminder why you should instruct a solicitor early on and also a reminder of how important it is to check your legal documents when you receive them. 

 

Not everyone instructs a solicitor as soon as they put their house on the market and the sellers of this property were one of them and instead waited until they had a buyer (majority of people do that). 

 

Once a sale was agreed, the solicitors were instructed and, as the estate agent, we issued the memorandum of sale along with a set of the sales particulars. 

 

Upon receiving our memo and obtaining a copy of the land registry title documents, it became apparent that the garage that the sellers had used and was being sold with the property did not actually belong to them. 

 

Why? 

 

When they purchased it 7 years before, it was not included as part of the sale on the legal documents and therefore land registry still had it recorded under the previous owners name. Furthermore, as it had not been included as part of the sale, the garage still had a legal charge (what a lender places on a property they have leant money on) on it from the previous owners mortgage company. 

 

How did this happen? 

 

Solicitors, when instructed, will send buyers and sellers, copies of the plans to make sure that what is shown is actually what is being sold and purchased. Remember that the solicitor you instruct will not have visited the property and will not know what it looks like. 

 

In this case the sellers, when they purchased, and the previous sellers, when they sold it, failed to check the documents they were exchanging included the garage and therefore this was omitted from the submission to land registry once the original sale had gone through. 

 

What had to be done? 

 

The solicitors acting for the current seller had to contact those who acted for them when they purchased it, who in turn had to contact the previous owners solicitors. They then had to track down the previous owners. Documents had to be prepared, signed, witnessed and all submitted to land registry and then the wait for land registry to process it. Once done the charge had to be removed. 

 

All of that took time and placed the current sale at huge risk of collapse which would have cost £000's of wasted money for the seller and the buyers. 

 

Fortunately, with regular communication between ourselves and all the solicitors involved, we were able to keep everyone calm whilst we slowly pieced everything together. Yesterday, we finally wished the sellers well on their journey and were delighted to hand the keys over to the new buyer, 9 MONTHS AFTER THE INITIAL OFFER HAD BEEN ACCEPTED! 

 

Please, if you are selling a property, instruct a solicitor early and check the documents carefully so you can advise your solicitor early on if something is not right. This can sometimes be corrected even before you agree a sale. If you are buying a property, then check carefully what the solicitor sends you and make sure that everything is included that should be and boundaries are shown relative to what you have physically seen. 

 

If you have any questions on this or any other property related matter, then please get in touch and we will be delighted to assist. 

 

📞 01452 260993 

📧 enquiries@rbwalters.co.uk 

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We are the highest, solely 5⭐rated Estate Agent in Gloucester and 6 times Best Estate Agent winner at The British Property Awards. 

Instructing a Solicitor and Checking Your Documents