Land Registry Error

The map of our property on the Land Registry website has taken a small piece of land from our property which makes it appear that we built an extension outside the property boundary. Only discovered when the buyer's solicitor queried this last week and it's jeopardising the sale of our house and the purchase of our new house due to the time it will take to sort out.

Just been to the Land Registry to be met by someone who was absolutely no help whatsoever and quite frankly just rude. Apparently Land Reg maps are rarely wrong!

I have a copy of the map that was lodged by our solicitor when we purchased the property and I know that the fault is with the Land Registry and have been advised that it will be a minimum of 8 weeks before we get a copy of the map from their archives.

If our sale and purchase fall through because of this delay and it is found that they mapped the property wrong and even though they fix it but it's too late do they have any accountability at all? I know it's always stated that Land Registry maps will not be completely accurate but this is a clear portion of land at the side of the house that has been re-allocated to another folio which now belongs to the Management Company.

Our solicitor has advised us to get the Management Co to do a Deed of Rectification which will be quicker so hopefully that works out but this is all at a significant financial cost to us through no fault of our own.

Has anyone been through anything similar?

Just a thought. You could also request that they correct the information under the Data Protection Act.

lmd said:

Just been to the Land Registry to be met by someone who was absolutely no help whatsoever and quite frankly just rude. Apparently Land Reg maps are rarely wrong!

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FWIW...

lmd said:

Our solicitor has advised us to get the Management Co to do a Deed of Rectification which will be quicker so hopefully that works out but this is all at a significant financial cost to us through no fault of our own.

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What is the extent of the costs involved?

I will be putting in a complaint, thanks. I am not sure of costs yet but to get map drawn up, Deed drawn up by my solicitor, reviewed by management Co solicitor, then whatever has to be paid to lodge the deed it will be in excess of 1000 euro probably closer to 1,500.

Late in the day responding.

Thanks for giving an outline on costs of rectification. I have different issues but the only route to rectification is the Legal Route. Its not just issues with Land Direct and how land/site is outlined on their website. My issues began with the purchase of the property and despite requesting information from the Solicitor, there was no engagement with my request - the outline of the property was greater than what I was purchasing and sale of property by next door neighbour added to the misinformation - two solicitors signed off on the sale/purchase, ignoring the boundaries of my property, impacting on my actual boundaries and only now ten years later am I in possession of the facts.

There are no rules for Solicitors when it comes to buying and selling property - each case taken to correct their mishandling of such actions remains private and never enters the public arena, so they profit by this, without even a signal like "Buyer beware". Are the Legal Profession and the County Councils/Corporations complicit? Its my opinion they are. All of the legal decisions decided on such issues should be publically available, its not good enough to just have a 'disclaimer' and ultimately its win/win for Land Registry Registry

The Land Registry record is definitive, legally it is not meaningful to say that it's wrong.

Ironically the LR maps are often wrong. They were digitisied some years ago and straight lines at right angles were often used where the reality was different.

Forget the complaint that's a waste of time unless you want an argument rather than a solution. You need a deed of rectification and it will cost you.

The straight lines are known as "slivers." They occur because at the time the maps were digitised the databases holding the GIS data was probably 32 bit rather than 64 bit and wasn't holding detail to the level where these would be a nice curve instead of a sharp triangle. Its a known issue, and its certainly not the only state agency impacted by it (for obvious reasons I cannot say which one).