Land Registry Title Deed, Unilateral Notices, Charges, Restrictions and Covenants

Hey guys so I thought I'd just take a quick five minutes and explain to you notices and charges and restrictions and what we're talking about here is Land Registry and title to the property. Basically big picture what happens is every property has historically a physical piece of paper and on that piece of paper it recorded who owns it what encumbrances there were you know any easements, covenants all these sort of things restrictions, notices it's obviously now land registry is digital it's online but they record the register but the actual paper still exists in some places. So where the paper hasn't been handed in and put into a digital form there's actually paper but anyway that's historic and sometimes you cannot get clean in title because there is no paper form in there and that that's never been handed in. Anyway, so let's get down and dirty. So what are the differences because practically that's not gonna mean much to you. But what will mean to you is that if you're buying a property what you're effectively doing is transferring the ownership or the title from one entity to another, obviously to yourself. The interesting thing is most time you take a mortgage so whilst you're taking the title there'll be a restriction on that title which is the mortgage effectively saying hey you know they always for this much or there may not be an amount it probably might be an amount it'll be the fact there's a mortgage or charge against it okay and that will often be a first charge or a second charge.  And all first or second charge means and basically this is not just charges but notices as well and everything is that the date that it gets entered into the register on the title, that is the date gets precedent over the others. So if you want first charge and there's two of the same charges the first one that got entered is the one that takes precedent that'll be the first charge and then second charge. So let's say you've got a first and second charge but all of a sudden you want this one to have the first charge you'll need to take that off and take the first charge off and put it back on. That would become the first and that will become the second okay so the date entered is very important.  Now jumping down a bit further, all right so we have restrictions which can be things like covenants, it can be easements whether they be restrictive or positive in other words it could be you're allowed to walk over somebody else's land in order to access whatever or it could be restrictive which says you can't build on this because the government has pipes underneath or gas pipes or whatever so you're not allowed to build on top of that so there's you know there's those sort of things they're on the title too. The other side is that you have these things called notices and there's two types of notices: an agreed notice and a unilateral notice. An agreed notice is a little bit stronger than a unilateral notice in court. Basically what's happened it's showing that there's been an agreement between two parties and therefore it's an agreed notice that's going onto the title. A unilateral notice anyone can put on, there's no restrictions and the land registry doesn't say you can put this on and not put this on. What they'll do if you do a UN1 form which is the form that puts it on a UN4 takes it off but UN1 puts it on. 

A UN1 will basically say you know I lay claim this because i lent money blah blah blah whatever it is I've got you know this so i've got an interest in the property and what it is it's a notice. So there's a restriction which that restriction would need to be fixed before conveyance can take place there or transfer can take place. Whereas a notice doesn't necessarily have to happen. A notice is more what has to happen before anything happens with that title that affects that notice you'll be notified. If you don't do anything about it that's still going to take place. It's not going to stop conveyance to the title so that's the UN1 or the unilateral notice. The same with the agreed notice and agreed notice won't stop the thing happening.

Breaking down more practically for what happens you know in most places if you're buying an off-plan property what will happen often is the solicitor who's conveying they'll have exchange and then completion. Between exchange where your interest you take equitable interest not legal title but effectively equitable interest in that property between there and completion they will register UN1 so if somebody else tries to sell that plot to somebody else or do something like that well then you are going to get notified of that and therefore the solicitor can go hey guys that's not going to happen. That's what the UN1 does in an off-plan scenario. Now what often happens is the solicitor will register here the place will be conveyed and then they will forget to take it off at the end. Now what that means is if somebody three months, six months down the track who owns the freehold of that property goes to sell it on to another company all of a sudden you've got all these UN1’s sitting there they want to clean the thing up so what they'll do is they'll notify them all that they're going to be removing that and then based on that you will obviously either respond and say yep take it off or you'll ignore it and it'll come off anyway. So that's pretty much the process. Now if a developer's asking you to permission if you if it's previous to owning the property then speak to your solicitor okay if it's after owning the property and you know they'll give a reason they're probably selling their freehold on you know that's probably fine because at the end of the day you already have title to that property okay and that's you know that's yours. You may find that some of the other ones you know the lenders will put a charge and that will be you know their first charge whatever but notices are different. So yes they all go into the same you know um area charge some people call it a universe a unilateral charge it's technically not a charge because the way we use a terminology charge is that you have a you know a claim to that which a unilateral notice you may have a claim but it's not as powerful as a charge.

So that should just give you a bit of a roundabout you know thing of yeah notices and charges and land registry and all that sort of stuff all right guys any questions you've got if it's legal if it's deep legal about your individual situation speak to your solicitor because they'll know what they've done okay but if it's more generalised then send me an email at webinars@gladfish.com and I'm happy to answer and give you more detail alright guys have a great day live with passion see you later

.