Thread: Unregistered Land Question

If you buy land that's unregistered, does this now have to be registered upon purchase? I'm pretty sure it does, but I can't find the Act or anything which states it, please can someone help! Thanks

Here is some information on this for you.

When title must be registered

Section 4 of the LRA 2002 sets out the events that trigger the compulsory first registration of title. These were updated and extended by the Land Registration Act 1997, and the Act therefore largely replicates the existing position. First, compulsory registration is triggered by specified types of transfer of a qualifying estate, which is defined as either a legal freehold estate or a legal lease with more than seven years to run. The transfers are those made:

i) For valuable or other consideration (which under subsection (6) includes estates which have a negative value);

ii) by way of gift (which subsection (7) provides will include transfers for the purposes of constituting a trust under which the settler does not retain the whole of the beneficial interest, or transfers for the purpose of uniting the legal title and the beneficial interest in property held under a trust under which the settler did not, on constitution, retain the whole of the beneficial interest);

iii) Under a court order; and

iv) By means of an assent (including a vesting assent).

Under subsection (3), transfers do not include transfers by operation of law (where, for example, an owner's property vests in personal representatives on death). Under subsection (4) compulsory registration will not apply to transfers involving:

• i) the assignment of a mortgage term (where there is a mortgage by demise or sub-demise, and the mortgagee assigns the mortgage by transferring the mortgage term); or

• ii) Where a lease is assigned or surrendered to the owner of the immediate reversion where the term is to merge in that reversion (because the estate transferred disappears).

30. Registration will be compulsory where section 171A of the Housing Act 1985 applies (i.e. where a person ceases to be a secure tenant because his or her landlord disposes of an interest in a house to a private sector landlord (subsection (1)(b), replicating the current law)). Compulsory Registration will also apply to the grant of leases out of freehold land or leasehold, with more than seven years to run, where the lease is granted for valuable or other consideration, by way of a gift, or under a court order, apart from the exceptions in the section.

Hope you find this useful.