Deeds held on behalf of a charity

A ten year lease was granted to a charity in June 2015 with the proprietors being so called ‘holding’ trustees of the charity. Unfortunately one of the proprietors died six years ago but the Land Registry was not told. The lease has now expired. I assume that the charity needs to take some action to regularise the situation both in respect of the expiration of the lease and the death of one of the proprietors?  
 

Hello Graham - It depends on what is happening to the leased property if the term of the lease has come to an end.  If the ownership is being relinquished then an application to close the leasehold title would need to be made.  If a new lease is granted, and it is for a term of 7 years or above, then it should be registered with HM Land Registry.  Please refer to our Practice Guide 25 and Practice Guide 26 for more info on our requirements. 

With regards to the deceased trustee, if a new trustee is being appointed then the title register should be updated.  Our Practice Guide 24 includes more information. 

Thanks Nimish. To be clear, is it a legal requirement to close the leasehold title when the lease has come to an end irrespective of what happens to the leased property? In other words that this needs to be done before anything else can happen?

Hello Graham. I am responding as Nimish is currently unavailable. It is a requirement to apply to us to close the leasehold title and cancel the notice of lease on the superior title, but there is no prescribed timescale for this. Whether anything else can happen would often not involve HM Land Registry directly as we are essentially the registration authority at the end of the process.