Expedited and urgent - purchase at risk of falling through

Hi, I'm a buyer of a property, and my purchase (and whole property chain) is at risk of falling through if Land Registry delays are not resolved before end of January 2025. It's time critical because my buyer's mortgage offer for my current property (the one I'm selling) runs out at the end of January. If they can't complete by end of Jan then they'll back out of the sale, and I won't be able to continue with my purchase. The delays to completion relate to my own onward purchase in the chain, and are due to unreasonable delays at Land Registry, ongoing for several years now, one of which is out of my control.

The two outstanding Land Registry applications related to the property I'm purchasing (address below) have been delayed due to an additional historical request. This request is for another unrelated nearby property, and has been holding up the registration process since 2022. The two applications following this are the ones directly related to the house I'm purchasing. They were submitted in H1 2023 by Loxley Solicitors and, subsequently, Bertram Fairbanks Solicitors. These two requests have already been chased on numerous occasions, and expedited months and months ago in H1 2024 (the requests to expedite were actually approved in May 2024 by Land Registry). Still, even today, there's been no movement on the requests due to the historic request before them holding everything up. This historic request doesn't even relate to the property I'm purchasing, and despite multiple attempts from Loxley and Bertram's solicitors, we can't get any responses from the firm who submitted it in 2022. Bertram and Loxley have also been in continual contact with Land Registry and nothing has been done to try and move this forward for years. The (unrelated) initial application holding everything up was submitted by another third party (Paddle and Cocks LLP), and relates to a completely different property in the same area 2 miles away. It was originally submitted in Nov 2022, and the requesting party still remains unresponsive years on. Land Registry apparently submitted a cancellation warning to this party mid 2024, but for whatever reason, things still haven't changed. Both Loxley and Fairbanks solicitors have tried to get in contact with the third party behind the submission - Paddle and Cocks LLP - multiple times, and they refuse to engage or respond. P&C are also refusing to engage with Land Registry, despite multiple requests for info. Surely there are processes in place to prevent one unresponsive party (for a separate transaction and property) having an adverse effect on a different property in the same area? Especially now we're 3 years on?! They just won't respond. So there's nothing we can all do. Myself, the developer and the solicitors from the past 2 years have our hands tied. And the initial submission doesn't even concern my property at all!  

Please can Land Registry look at the requests for the specific property I'm purchasing: Barn 1, Lower Charlwood, Ashcombe, EX70QD, and process them as a priority. The relevant requests have been outstanding for almost a year. Surely there's a way to cancel or separate out the other historical request from 2022, which concerns a totally different property situated some distance away from the one I'm purchasing. The wait time for this to be resolved has been unreasonable, especially given that two requests were approved to be expedited 7-8 months ago.

If I'm not able to get this sorted by the end of January then my sale will fall through. This is why it was expedited back in May 2024, to make sure there weren't delays, and instead we've been waiting and pushing the sale on ever since (which we cant do any more). My mortgage lender is stating they must receive the registered title and relevant paperwork before I can complete. End of Jan 2025 is the final deadline before the chain falls apart and I'm out of pocket.

I'd really appreciate any help you could give to help untangle this and get it sorted. Sadly, I do not have details of the title number or application reference as I did not submit them - the developer's solicitors did (Bertram Fairbanks). I am the buyer and the solicitors have tried but can't do anything more than they have done already. Apparently Land Registry keep responding to say there's nothing they can do, that they're still waiting for responses from Paddle and Cocks, yet everyone's been waiting far too long for this - for nearly 3 years now. This property under their request should be separated out and handled on its own. It's not even near the same plot of land!!

The two requests for the property I'm buying have been outstanding as expedited for nearly a year. Please can you try and obtain the background on this issue based on the property address supplied, as I do not have the reference numbers - this may take me some time to get from the solicitors, and time is short. I'm hoping Land Registry can find a way to urgently prioritise processing the requests specific to my purchase before the end of Jan to ensure it doesn't fall through.

P.s. I tried to locate the title number on the Land Registry search online but it says "property information not available"

Mollie - the application is still pending as there are prior applications affecting the seller's title that cannot yet be completed. 
The provisional title number and registered information won't appear online until the application is completed
I'll contact the casework team for an update 
I notice that you have duplicated your enquiry through our contact form as well - if you would prefer to engage through that channel then please let me know and I will leave things to the support team to consider and respond as appropriate. Wouldn't want to duplicate matters and efforts by responding through both channels
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Hi Adam, thank you very much for your response.

No that's fine, happy to engage here instead. I submitted the contact us request before I realised this forum was an option.

That's exactly my point - the historical application has been pending since 2022. And this application relates to a completely separate property. Plus, nobody can get hold of the party that submitted that request; Land Registry have tried, the seller's solicitors have tried on numerous occasions, to no avail. It concerns another separate activity centre building two miles down the road, and is unrelated to the property I'm buying in 2025.

The fact that this has been outstanding for almost 3 years signals that something needs to change. Plus the fact that two expedited requests (that have been approved by Land Registry) have sat there now for 7 months. It clearly requires a different approach than waiting for the original unrelated party to respond on an outdated request. This party obviously won't respond, given what we've seen for years now.

Hi Mollie - there are a few prior applications pending against the seller's title and they do affect as the rights (easements) included impact on the seller's title inc the part purchased under DN769113    
The oldest application was submitted in Nov 2022 and correspondence with the conveyancer, Paddle & Cocks, is ongoing. The latest exchanges were at the end of Dec and again this month. Further checks are being completed and they expire at the end of January. As a result hopefully the lengthy wait on that one may be coming to an end which in turn will allow the later applications, inc your own, to be processed.
We then have another application that also affects Barn 1 as submitted by Loxley solicitors
I'll let your contact form submission run and the Support Team will follow up on matters and respond as appropriate - it might help you more to have that more formal line of enquiry 
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