UK Law and Practice Contributed by: Colin Rodrigues and Harminder Sandhu, Hawkins Hatton Corporate Lawyers Ltd
• freehold rights, where a proprietor has abso - lute control of a property and any dealings with it, as they own it in its entirety; and • leasehold rights, where a proprietor does not own the property but is granted exclusive use of it subject to terms (including the period of occupation) agreed to in the lease. 2.2 Laws Applicable to Transfer of Title Title to real estate is transferred by a sale con - tract and transfer. No special laws apply to the transfer of any specific types of real estate. 2.3 Effecting Lawful and Proper Transfer of Title A lawful and proper transfer of title is effected by submitting a duly executed transfer deed to HM Land Registry under cover of an AP1 form. This transfers the legal interest in the property from the seller to the purchaser. On receipt of the deed, the Land Registry will register the legal interest of the new proprietor and generate an electronic register of the property showing the purchaser as the new owner of the property. This registration process is stipulated by the Land Registration Act 2002. Since November 2022, AP1 applications to change the register have been electronic through the Digital Registration Service, and the process of manually competing an AP1 and uploading it to the portal has been withdrawn. It is possible to obtain title insurance. However, this is not common, as the expectation is that a purchaser will fully interrogate and investigate the title. 2.4 Real Estate Due Diligence Real estate due diligence is carried out at all stages of a transaction. This is usually under - taken as follows.
The purchaser’s conveyancer will interrogate the title to the property being purchased, and will raise enquiries of the seller to: • understand what rights the property has the benefit of and is subject to; • identify any covenants or restrictive cov - enants to which the property is subject that may affect the use of the property (eg, it would not be advisable to complete the sale of a property that has a total restriction on the property being used as an office if it is the client’s intention to use the property for this purpose); and • highlight any security registered against the property, which will need to be discharged prior to completion of the transaction. The purchaser’s conveyancer also undertakes searches against the property, namely: • a contaminated land search to identify any contamination issues; • a drainage and water search to identify whether the property is connected to the mains water and drainage system; • a coal and mining search to identify whether the property is located on or close to a mining area; • a chancel repair search to identify any chan - cel repair liability; and • a local authority search to identify any plan - ning permissions or building regulation approvals/issues. The purchaser’s conveyancer also raises stand - ard enquiries in respect of the property for the seller to reply to (see 2.5 Typical Representa- tions and Warranties ).
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