Land Registry Mapsearch shows a small strip of land at the rear as unregistered

Hey folks, we’re currently in the process of buying a property and seem to have found ourselves in an infinite loop with a Land Registry issue. The property we’re buying turned up an unregistered part of land on map search and our solicitor is pushing for adverse possession. Not that it matters but we think the depth of the land is about a metre and it spans the width of the property. Our sellers solicitors are pushing that is a map search error, and proposing an indemnity policy to be put in place whilst it is resolved, our solicitor is pushing back on this. We’re trying to find a resolution to this as we wanted to be in the property before September to apply for school transfers. What’s happened so far: • Obtained official copies of the title register and plan for the neighbouring property. • Found that our title and part of the neighbouring title share a common 1932 root conveyance (same date, same original vendor/purchaser) — they were originally one parcel, later split in 1988. • The 1988 transfer that split them includes a covenant referencing our property by name, and fixes fence/boundary maintenance responsibility with “T-marks” on the shared boundary. • Manually overlaid the two title plans and could see a visible gap between the two red-edged boundaries. However this was very much an approximation I did myself and not hard evidence Questions I want to ask: 1. Given a shared root title and a documented 1988 boundary split with T-marks, is this the kind of case that typically gets resolved as a plotting/mapping error rather than requiring a full adverse possession claim? 2. How does Land Registry typically investigate/resolve small “gap” strips like this between two long-established residential titles? 3. Roughly how long does this kind of investigation usually take once it’s confirmed as expedited? 4. Has anyone had a similar case where the boundary was resolved without needing formal adverse possession — and if so, what evidence tipped it that way?

Sorry for the janky formatting by the way…

Sorry to read of the issues you are facing but please note that whilst this is a public forum you won't get the shared involvement of others as you might expect. The forum is used by us at HMLR to enable users to find answers to common Qs by relying on previous threads/posts and not needing to contact us directly.

Re your specific point - MapSearch is purely an information tool to enable users to identify the title number(s) re land/property. It should not be relied upon for registered extents and you/the conveyancers should be looking at the title plans to confirm those. 1. No - if the documentary title does not include the land a claim as to adverse possession is most likely required. 2. All depends on what type of application is made. If a request to amend the title(s) is made we would look at the supporting evidence and original registration details to see if an error was made and if so who by. If our error we would contact the affected owners and hopefully agree how to correct things. If not our error then over to the applicants to prove title.

3. All depends on what's involved. Expedition gets an application to the processing start line. How long the race is depends on the specifics involved. Amends aren't expedited but are dealt with asap. If an Adv P application is needed then average would be 20-24 weeks if all went well. 4. Others may post a response but very unlikely

Thank you, that's really helpful and more direct than I expected. On point 1, to clarify: if the original 1930s conveyance plans, when read against the modern title plans, show the disputed strip was actually intended to be within one of the two titles (just mis-transferred onto the registered plan), would that count as the "documentary title" including the land, or does documentary title only mean the current registered title plan itself? If it's the former, what kind of evidence would typically support an amendment request rather than an adverse possession claim? We have a shared 1932 root conveyance across both titles, and a 1988 transfer that split them with a covenant naming the boundary and fence responsibility ("T-marks") on the shared line. Trying to work out whether that's the kind of thing that supports a title correction, or whether it just isn't enough without an unbroken adverse possession period. Appreciate the time on the 20-24 week estimate too, useful to know what we might be looking at. Again, thank you for the response, it is really appreciated

Documentary title can refer to both deeds, documents and the land register. Deeds don't 'intend' anything as they are generally quite clear as to what's being conveyed. The devil will always be in the detail and if I have understood you correctly the strip of land is unregistered so that was either an error in registration or the land was never conveyed as 'intended'. What supports a title correction is identifying if a registration error occurred. If it didn't as the submitted deeds/documents at the time did not include the said land, then you go down the proof of title route which could mean an adverse possession claim as you don't have any deeds to prove title.

It reads as if you have the relevant deeds/documents to show what happened and how but are uncertain if they show the land was included in the 1988 Transfer or not. I don't quite follow the reference to a dispute and a splitting of titles but the key seems to be where the error occurred be that in the conveyancing/deeds or in registration of either title. If there's a dispute over the land I would imagine the reading of where that error occurred may also be an issue to consider. Although if we erred that's usually evidenced by the original application and archived information.

And just to add if there's a dispute over ownership of the land then that's going to prolong any timescales involved whether that's a claim of ownership or correction of an error that affects more than one registered title