The registration gap is a risky period in a property purchase. Tricia Hemans & Daniel Black explain how to avoid the pitfalls
- Until a purchase has been registered, the buyer is not yet the legal owner of the property, even though they are the owner of the equity.
- An equitable owner can exercise certain ‘owner’s powers’, but there are strict limitations as to what they can do with the property.
- There are several steps a purchaser and their representatives can take to avoid problems during the registration gap.
The position of a purchaser during the registration gap can be a very precarious one indeed. Having exchanged contracts and executed a transfer, the purchaser is the equitable owner of the property. Yet until the transaction is completed by registration, they are not the owner at law (the Land Registration Act 2002 (LRA 2002), s 27(1)).
In the recent decision of the Upper Tribunal in R M Residential Ltd v Westacre Estates Ltd & Bellrise Designs Ltd [2024]
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