Land registry fiasco following 3 deaths over 30 years with no registry
Looking for advice on registering an unregistered property (England) after 80+ years of no paperwork
My great‑grandfather bought a house ~80 years ago but never registered it. When he died, he left it to my mum (we have the will + probate from the 80s), but again it wasn’t registered.
My mum died intestate in the 2000s. My dad was still living there, so nothing was transferred or registered then either.
My dad died recently (also intestate). During probate we discovered the property has never been registered, and now my sibling (executor) is trying to get it registered with a solicitor. Land Registry is asking for proof of ownership we’re struggling to provide.
The problem:
We cannot find the deeds anywhere. We’ve tried every solicitor and bank my mum used. The council can’t provide old council tax records. We have almost no bills from that era. We do have my mum’s probate listing the house as an asset, but not much else.
We can’t sell the house to fund more legal help until it’s registered, and the solicitors we’ve spoken to are quoting very high fees for reconstructing the title. With Land Registry delays being what they are, we don’t want to submit a weak application and wait years just to be rejected.
Question:
Has anyone dealt with reconstructing a title for an unregistered property with missing deeds? What evidence did you use, and is there a realistic way to do this without spending thousands upfront?
Also, some of this info is second‑hand from my sibling who lives in the property, so if anything sounds off or impossible, please say so.