Help!Buyer of our property would not register his name on Land Registry - what to do?

[kobylka]

We sold our property over 18 months ago but keep getting various utility suppliers/service providers writing to us and calling. Later was electric supplier - although we gave them the final reading and told we moved (they transferred our account to the new address), they are now pursuing us for c. £2,500 bill related to the period AFTER we sold the property. No amount of reasoning about the fact that we did not ask to open another account in that property (it is a different account number to what we had, and they do not have a contract in our names) and that we sold the property seem to help. They go after people based on the current record in Land Registry, and for some odd reason, our names are still listed on that property!
We called the solicitors who closed the sale - just to be told it is not their or our responsibility to register the new owners with the Land Registry. It is the buyer and his solicitors who should do so.
We do not have the contacts for the buyer (he bought the property as an investment, so does not live there), and his solicitors do not respond to us.
We called the Land Registry, and apparently they have the registration form related to the sale but there is some kind of technical issued related t the leasehold documents that needs to be fixed.

We provided the completion documents to the electricity provider and a letter from our solicitors, just to be told the provider does not care, and they go ahead to the legal action based solely on Land Registry record.

As this is the third set of suppliers threatening to take us to court for someone else's bills, we are trying to see how we can stop this. Since we have no control over the buyer's actions whatsoever, is there any kind of notice we can add to the property title to show we are not responsible for it any more??

[nemesis45]

Re: Help!Buyer of our property would not register his name on Land Registry - what to

We sold our property over 18 months ago but keep getting various utility suppliers/service providers writing to us and calling. Later was electric supplier - although we gave them the final reading and told we moved (they transferred our account to the new address), they are now pursuing us for c. £2,500 bill related to the period AFTER we sold the property. No amount of reasoning about the fact that we did not ask to open another account in that property (it is a different account number to what we had, and they do not have a contract in our names) and that we sold the property seem to help. They go after people based on the current record in Land Registry, and for some odd reason, our names are still listed on that property!
We called the solicitors who closed the sale - just to be told it is not their or our responsibility to register the new owners with the Land Registry. It is the buyer and his solicitors who should do so.
We do not have the contacts for the buyer (he bought the property as an investment, so does not live there), and his solicitors do not respond to us.
We called the Land Registry, and apparently they have the registration form related to the sale but there is some kind of technical issued related t the leasehold documents that needs to be fixed.

We provided the completion documents to the electricity provider and a letter from our solicitors, just to be told the provider does not care, and they go ahead to the legal action based solely on Land Registry record.

As this is the third set of suppliers threatening to take us to court for someone else's bills, we are trying to see how we can stop this. Since we have no control over the buyer's actions whatsoever, is there any kind of notice we can add to the property title to show we are not responsible for it any more??

Good morning welcome to LB

Have you made a Formal Complaint to your energy supplier say to the MD/CEO? As is usually
seen customer (dis) service jockeys at utility companies have little or no knowledge and even
less authority to deal with anything even slightly complicated.

Contact the LR you should be able to register a " caution" on the LR file.

nem

[Crazy council]

Re: Help!Buyer of our property would not register his name on Land Registry - what to

Hi

Your probably dealing with the collection arm/agent of the billing company, whatever you do or say, they will not check anything and just hassle you.

Your protected by the sale, Send them a copy of the sale document, recorded, with a letter telling them to withdraw all claims against you after that date, or you will commence actions to protect yourself, in the letter, state that there will be costs, for your instructing a solicitor,

Ask them to provide you with full company details so you can make a claim of harrasment. ( they are required to check first before threatening action on a debt )

[PAWS]

Re: Help!Buyer of our property would not register his name on Land Registry - what to

Might also be worth reporting the purchaser’s solicitor to the solicitor’s regulation Authority or send them a letter telling them you will do so if they don’t get their act together.

[R0b]

Re: Help!Buyer of our property would not register his name on Land Registry - what to

As crazy council has indicated you will be protected. the 'sale document' will be the TP1 or TR1 form that would have been signed by you and the buyer at some point and forward onto whoever is chasing you. Without getting too legal on this, technically if the buyer hasn't registered the property in their name then they only have a beneficial interest in the property i.e. the right to register the property in their name. Until they do this, the property is held on trust by you for the buyer.

It is well known that the LR has delays when updating title to the register and this can sometimes take up to 6 months, but I am not aware of anything taking 18 months unless the title is extremely complex.

Assuming you have paid your solicitors fees, the file they have on you relating to the selling of the property now becomes yours and you can request this from them. This should contain the TR1/TP1 form you need. Once you have sent this to the relevant chasers, I would also point out that if they continue to contact you then it will be deemed as harassment and you will consider taking further action to that effect.