In accordance with the Land Registration Act 2002, land or property must be registered with the Land Registry if it has been purchased, gifted, inherited, received in exchange for other property or land, or mortgaged.
Under the Solicitors Northern Ireland order 1976, solicitors in Northern Ireland must be involved with the legal process related to the transfer of land and property on completion of a sale, known as domestic conveyancing.
What is Domestic Conveyancing?
The conveyancing procedure involves the contract preparation by the seller’s solicitor and then the contract examined by the buyer’s solicitor before a signature is added. The seller is obligated to disclose all his knowledge about the property, and the buyer carries responsibility for buying the property in its current physical state.
You can manage your own conveyancing but there is no legal protection if you do, and thus, you run the risk of legal complications along the way that cannot be covered without a solicitor. It is so important to make sure you have all your bases covered when it comes to the most important purchase of your life.
When must you register the property?
A solicitor will help to get you into your home by taking all the steps to complete your house purchase, including transferring the funds to get you to completion. They will help prepare the tax return and plan to pay the Stamp Duty Land Tax to HMRC.
When a property is sold in Northern Ireland, the title must be registered with The Land Registry. The solicitor will register your name as the owner and your mortgage provider as the lender at Land Registry. When register of your property is done by your solicitor, you also need to tell Land & Property Services (LPS) the date you became the new owner. LPS needs this information to assess the rate bill for your property.
How long does a solicitor have to register a property?
The application must be made within 30 working days from the date of the Priority and Bankruptcy Searches however it can take anywhere from 2 to 6 months for the Land Registry to register the property. The reason for these delays is usually the large backlog of files that the Land Registry is amending.
In short, at McParland & Sons, our professional conveyancing solicitors will work to complete an easy transition on your property sale by:
- Checking right of way and boundary issues.
- Checking planning permission and building control issues.
- Drawing up contracts.
- Organising your stamp duty.
- Communicating with your estate agent.
- Redeeming existing mortgages and register new mortgages.
- Drawing up deeds and contracts.
- Registering a property.
- Seeking Indemnity Insurance.
- Settling pre-contract enquiries.
- Undertaking a home buyer’s survey
You must have all the bases covered when registering your property by law. Contact H McPartland & Sons conveyance experts for more advice on registering a property for you.
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