Property registration not getting through

PierreL

Property registration not getting through
18th Dec 19 at 4:25 PM
#1
Hello,

I moved to Dublin 8 month ago and I'm in the process of buying a property.
I've been sell agreed for the past 6 month but my solicitor is telling me that we can't proceed with the purchase because the property is not registered with the Property Registration Authority.

After a lot of calls, I found out that the registration was submitted in January 2019 ( almost a year ago ) by a different solicitor than the one in charge of selling the property.
They told me that this solicitor was hard to contact but he told the real stat agent "all the queries have been resolved and it’s just down to the Property Registration Authority to mark it on their system."

I also managed to get the dealing number and tried to contact the PRA myself but with my poor English and the fact that they can't disclose the status of a request with another person than the one who submitted it I didn't get any answer form them...

My wife is starting to be very depressed because we live in a tiny temporary accommodation while all our belongings are on hold with the moving company. So we've been living with the thing we have in 2 suitcase for the past 6 months.

I don't know what to do, can anyone please advice me what I should do to fix this ?
Thanks a lot

Marcusm

PRAI will prioritise the registration of property which is to be sold. The solicitor handling the registration is the one able to request this. If that is not the same as the one handling the sale then I am unsurprised at their failure to expedite!

PierreL

Yes that what the PRAI and my solicitor told me.
As the solicitor who submitted this a year ago is not involved in the sale he is not doing anything about it. I don't even know if what he said "all the queries have been resolved and it’s just down to the Property Registration Authority to mark it on their system." is true and I don't see any way to find out about it...

I'm so lost ...

Addle

PierreL wrote: »

Yes that what the PRAI and my solicitor told me.
As the solicitor who submitted this a year ago is not involved in the sale he is not doing anything about it. I don't even know if what he said "all the queries have been resolved and it’s just down to the Property Registration Authority to mark it on their system." is true and I don't see any way to find out about it...

I'm so lost ...

Is his client not selling to you?
Threaten to pull out.
His client won’t be long getting on to him.

PierreL

The client seems to be a bank.
I've never managed to speak directly to them.
I already threaten to pull out when speaking to the realtor agent couple of weeks ago. But nothing as change.
I called the PRAI this morning again to try to get some help, without luck... They just told me that there was not even the expedite on the case ...

Claw Hammer

Are you buying a repossessed property?

PierreL

I don't know what that mean.
The only thing I know is that after a few month the realtor agent told me the seller was a bank. They took ownership on the property as the previous owner was not paying his mortgage.

riclad

The house had a mortgage on it, the person living there could have simply given it back to the bank , or the bank may have taken the person to court
to evict the client for non payment of the loan.
Maybe call the pra back , with a friend who is fluent in english .
who can explain the situation to them.
You can email them, give the any reference no , you have .
my friend gave the house, back to the bank, told them to sell it.
As she could no longer afford to pay the mortgage .
it was empty for 12 months and then sold .
There was no delays in the sale.
this was 2010 approx.The bank should still have the original deeds and other documents for the house .
Ask the prs to email you back , to tell you , what is going on,
is the house being registered ?, do they need more documents from the bank
or from your solicitor ,do they need any more info or documents to complete
the registration process .

Citygirl1

Hi all. Reading this thread can someone help clarify?

My understanding from recent research is that, if a property is not registered with the PRA, and is being sold, it is the responsibility of the purchaser/their solicitor to get it registered following the purchase, not the seller. Is this correct? This assumes that the property was not already sold/purchased since the rules changed in 2011.

Dolbhad

Citygirl1 wrote: »

Hi all. Reading this thread can someone help clarify?

My understanding from recent research is that, if a property is not registered with the PRA, and is being sold, it is the responsibility of the purchaser/their solicitor to get it registered following the purchase, not the seller. Is this correct? This assumes that the property was not already sold/purchased since the rules changed in 2011.

All property is registered and there are two systems of registration all under the jurisdiction of the property registration authority. You have the old system of registration called “the registry of deeds” and the newer system of registration called “the land registry”. The dual system is frustrating so since 2010/2011, any property (there are some minor exceptions) that is registry of deeds needs to be converted to the land registry.

It’s called “first registration”. It’s on the purchaser (and their solicitor) to do the first registration. Our solicitor had said legal fees were higher for first registration as more legal review needed but outlays are much lower than buying a land registry property so not much difference in the cost of legal services.

Sellers do need to provide a map of the unregistered land that’s suitable for first registration so is some cost involved for seller.

Citygirl1

Dolbhad wrote: »

It’s called “first registration”. It’s on the purchaser (and their solicitor) to do the first registration. Our solicitor had said legal fees were higher for first registration as more legal review needed but outlays are much lower than buying a land registry property so not much difference in the cost of legal services.

.

Thanks Dolbhad. That confirms my understanding. I just got a bit concerned reading this thread.

OP - I'm in the position of currently selling a property, which we discovered is partly on registered land and partly unregistered land, (so will require first registration).

I can tell you that the PRA seem to be exceedingly slow in working through all the queries they receive, and this is probably part of the issue, re delay you are encountering. I actually went into their office recently, as my solicitor was getting no responses from them re her queries, which has been holding up the sale of my property. And, in fairness, the guy I spoke to did manage to prioritise this, when I explained my position.

Dolbhad

Citygirl1 wrote: »

Thanks Dolbhad. That confirms my understanding. I just got a bit concerned reading this thread.

OP - I'm in the position of currently selling a property, which we discovered is partly on registered land and partly unregistered land, (so will require first registration).

I can tell you that the PRA seem to be exceedingly slow in working through all the queries they receive, and this is probably part of the issue, re delay you are encountering. I actually went into their office recently, as my solicitor was getting no responses from them re her queries, which has been holding up the sale of my property. And, in fairness, the guy I spoke to did manage to prioritise this, when I explained my position.

My understanding is first registration applications can take months (due to mapping) which is why the purchaser does the application so sales are not delayed.

If you, as seller, do the 1st registration and while that’s pending, sell the property on - the application is kicked out and new owner has to resubmit. Has your solicitor identified a problem that has required you to do first registration to sell? Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered as the seller to go about it.

Citygirl1

Dolbhad wrote: »

My understanding is first registration applications can take months (due to mapping) which is why the purchaser does the application so sales are not delayed.

If you, as seller, do the 1st registration and while that’s pending, sell the property on - the application is kicked out and new owner has to resubmit. Has your solicitor identified a problem that has required you to do first registration to sell? Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered as the seller to go about it.

Hi - no, I don't think we're being asked to complete the first registration (at least waiting for confirmation). However, I understand the buyer's solicitor had raised a query, as at present the property is partly on land that is registered and partly on land not registered - literally a line going straight through the house and garden! Impacting other properties in the estate also. It seems to be a legacy issue, due to the fact that prior to 2011 registration was not mandatory.
PRA have now finally responded to my solicitor, to clarify, so hopefully that's enough for the purchaser to work with. But when I visited their office to chase this up, the initial response was along the lines of "don't you know we've thousands of such queries".....