Unregistered title - costs involved

Hi all,

I've just bought a house and my solicitor wrote to me earlier this week saying that unfortunately the title is an unregistered title and to have it registered will be very expensive, bringing the total cost of conveyancing to over €4000 (incl. vat and outlays). She advised me to write to the auctioneer saying that I couldn't afford these costs (which I can't!) and she sent a letter herself stating that the only way around it would be for the vendor to reduce the purchase price of the house or for the vendor's solicitors to make the application for first registration themselves.

My solicitor has now written to the vendor's solicitor asking them to make the application themselves and she thinks that there should be no problem as they have plenty of time. The house is a new build and won't be ready until January/February 2010.

The vendor's solicitors have written back once saying that they don't see how it will be in any way costly to register the title in the land registry and have basically refused to do anything about it but my solicitor reckons we should stick to our guns on it.

Just wondering if anyone out there has encountered anything like this before. What's the likelihood that the vendor will change their minds and decide to register the title themselves?

Thanks for reading.

My understanding on this (and I could be way off) is that the purchasers solicitor takes care of getting the title registered for a new build. The land registry has a fee for first registration too but this is only 85 euro.

Fees are here

http://www.landregistry.ie/eng/Fees/Summary_of_the_Land_Registry_Fees_Order.html

I don't understand why your solicitor thinks a new build should have a registration already.

Hi plant43, thanks for your reply.

My understanding of it is that she thinks it's as easy or easier for the builder's solicitor to do it as he has most of the documents already.

You're right that the fee for Land Registry is only €85 but my solicitor says there are also extensive searches to be done which will be expensive and she is charging a separate professional for first registration of €1500. The total for eveything, including the first registration is over €4000.

I just wish there was some way around it, otherwise I'll have to pull out of the sale. This would then be the second sale that has fallen through for me in 6 months!!

As and from 1.1.2010, all land/property in all counties, save only Dublin and Cork, becomes compulsorily registrable on a sale or transfer. So, if the property is in one of the other counties, there is no way around a first registration on purchase.

I suspect this will become a major issue for many people as , to date, first registration was, by and large, a possible option rather than compulsory. A lot of solicitors will not have much actual experience in this area so there will be a period of trial and error.

mf

mf1 said:

As and from 1.1.2010, all land/property in all counties, save only Dublin and Cork, becomes compulsorily registrable on a sale or transfer. So, if the property is in one of the other counties, there is no way around a first registration on purchase.

I suspect this will become a major issue for many people as , to date, first registration was, by and large, a possible option rather than compulsory. A lot of solicitors will not have much actual experience in this area so there will be a period of trial and error.

mf

Click to expand...

Thanks mf1. I understand that this compulsory registration is fairly recent in the county I live in. I'm just a bit disappointed to be honest. I had budgeted for everything but not having to pay double the legal fees!

Until recently (and for upward of two decades), the only counties in the country where registration of unregistered titles (on a sale) was compulsory were Laois, Meath and Carlow. It was then extended to a few more counties and now, as MF1 says, they have gone all Big Bang about it. So, many solicitors have relatively little experience of doing this work.

Your solicitor may be right - but it may also be the case that she has not had to deal with too many first registrations and is overestimating the hardship involved.

A separate fee of €1500 is about right for a first registration of a possessory title (i.e.effectively a squatters title application - though mind you, I would be slow to buy this in the first place without knowing a lot more).

This fee seems high where a perfectly good 'registry of deeds' title is offered ( unless of course this sale is in a housing development where somebody assembled a parcel of various unregistered titles to make up the scheme - which can indeed happen and can be very time consuming and costly to register in the Land Registry)

Thanks for your reply MOB. The builder's solicitor has assured my solicitor that the title is 'perfectly good and marketable' so there shouldn't be any complications such as the one you mention. I have a feeling that I'm being charged a lot alright. I'm still waiting to hear back from the builder's solicitor with regard to them doing the registration themselves so I'm waiting to see what happens there.

Thanks everyone for your replies.