The Land Registry is the Government department which is responsible for recording the ownership of and interests affecting land in England & Wales. It provides a number of services including processing applications to register land or to register a change of ownership of land and interests affecting land, such as mortgages, rights and covenants.
The term “lease” comes up a lot in conveyancing but there is often confusion as to what exactly it is, and what it will contain. A lease is essentially an agreement whereby one party agrees to lend something to another party in return for some form of payment. It can relate to anything – a car, machinery, a television. In conveyancing transactions, the lease will be of land.
As well as describing the extent of a property and who owns it the title deeds (or land registry records for registered land, for the sake of this article we will use the terms “title deeds” and “land registry records” interchangeably) also contain information as to any third party interests affecting the property. These are things like easements, restrictions, notices, mortgages and covenants. Please note that this article deals only with freehold covenants. The rules relating to covenants in leases differ in terms of when and how they can be enforced and the consequences for breach.
This is a question I am often asked. When it comes to obtaining a copy of the register of title for a particular property the Land Registry offer two options; the Official Copy of the Register of Title or the Register View. The general public can be forgiven for confusing the two; they look very similar and appear on the face of it to contain the same information.
Unless you’ve been out of the country for the last 12 months or so, you couldn’t have failed to hear about “HS2”, the high speed rail link connecting the north of England to the South. HS2 will initially run between Birmingham and Land and will later, subject to further Government approval, extend to Leeds and Manchester.
Time is running out for property purchasers to take advantage of the first time buyer stamp duty relief. The temporary relief, which means that anyone who qualifies as a first time buyer and is paying between £125,001 and £250,000 for their property does not have to pay any stamp duty, was introduced in 2010 by the Labour Government in a bid to boost the flagging housing market by encouraging in more first time buyers.
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