Property Lawyers and Conveyancing Solicitors in Manchester City Centre for Transfer of Public Sector Housing Estates
Please note: Not to be used or relied upon without legal advice. These notes are for illustrative purposes ONLY
Transfers of Public Sector Housing Estates
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Points to consider:
Passageways and rooms over them:
Many houses have been built with joint passageways and with rooms over them. Adequate records of these features are often unavailable and consequently many sales have taken place on the basis of the ground floor layout. Some of these, but not all, have been picked up on registration by Land Registry, Property Lawyers and Conveyancing Solicitors. Care should be taken by Property Lawyers and Conveyancing Solicitors to ensure that the conveyance or transfer plan does not conflict with the prior sales. The result of the official search of the Index Map may assist, but as the register or the Index Map may not be correct, a physical inspection by the clients is advisable.
Roads, footpaths, common parts:
The plans must also identify:
- any road, footpaths, common parts, unadopted sewers etc which serve the area and which run over the remainder of the estate being retained by the initial vendor (e.g. local authorities in Manchester, Bury, Trafford, Salford and Stockport); and
- any easements previously obtained by the initial vendor (e.g. local authorities in Manchester, Bury, Trafford, Salford and Stockport) from adjacent owners to enable the estate to be developed in the first place
Plans and the Ordnance Survey:
The plans used by the Property Lawyers and Conveyancing Solicitors in the conveyance, transfer or lease must include sufficient details so that the Property can be identified clearly on the Ordnance Survey Map. Extracts of the Ordnance Survey Map should be used and, generally, the preferred scale is 1/1250 but only if the details of the layout including individual house boundaries can be shown clearly. Where rooms over passageways or other such details exists, which is not easily shown at this scale, a scale of 1/500 should be used by Property Lawyers and Conveyancing Solicitors, as insets if necessary. The Land Registry will not accept plans described 'for identification only' or marked 'do not scale from this drawing' or any other similar phrase.
For these reasons it will not normally be possible to draw on the plan a simple red line around the estate to transfer it all; careful consideration needs to be given to plan colouring and colour wash may be preferable to edging.
The existing incumbrances to which the Property is subject:
The extent of the Property to be sold is not the only problem. Most if not all of the prior disposals will have involved the grant and reservation of easements over the Property to be comprised in the estate disposal.
The grant and reservation of new easements in the estate disposal is covered below under: New easements granted over unregistered Property and New easements granted over registered Property.
Where the Property to be comprised in the estate / development disposal is already registered then these beneficial and adverse rights should already be shown on the Property Title Deeds. Where the Property is not registered, note (7) of the Certificate of Title form PSD 17 gives guidance on how the easements, covenants and other rights granted and reserved in those sales may be treated in the conveyance, transfer or lease and in that form.
When the property register is prepared following the estate disposal, the easements will be treated as follows:
Where previous disposals / sales of Land from the estate / development under the right to buy provisions have created statutory easements, they will be covered by an entry in the Property Register along the following lines:
'By [transfers] [conveyances] of adjacent or neighbouring Land pursuant to Chapter 1 of Part 1 of the Housing Act 1980 or Part V of the Housing Act 1985 the Land [in this title] has the benefit of and is subject to the easements and other rights prescribed by paragraph 2 of Schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1980 or Schedule 6 to the Housing Act 1985'
Other easements, if granted in common form, for example, in standard form transfers under Part I of the Housing Act 1985 (voluntary sales of Council Houses) or under Schedule 11 Housing Act 1988 (sales of a single house under voluntary provisions by a housing action trust) may be dealt with by general entries like the one above.
(All italics in this page are Crown Copyright and reproduced here for your information with permission from HM Land Registry)
If you require any further information please telephone 0161 866 8999 and we will be happy to help.
Ford Banks Irwin Solicitors
50 Stothard Road
Manchester
M32 9HB
Tel: 0161 866 8999
Fax: 0161 866 8333
E-mail: info@FordBanksIrwinSolicitors.co.uk
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Banks Irwin Solicitors | Solicitors in Manchester
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Manchester
M2 4PD
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