Title defects, can I sell my property? Your 2026 UK guide
Yes. Almost every title defect in England and Wales can still be sold: what changes is who can buy, at what discount, and how fast. The honest 2026 picture separates the two numbers the rest of the segment merges: the cash-purchase discount, which is priced on the property itself rather than on a formula, and the indemnity-insurance cost (£20-£800 for most cases; up to £2,000 for serious covenant breach). This page covers possessory title, missing deeds, restrictive covenants, boundary disputes, unregistered land: with the Brown v Ridley [2025] UKSC 7 and TA6 6th edition updates, named South Yorkshire firms, and a worked Sheffield example.
Get a Free, Confidential Cash Offer Call us nowQuick answer: In most cases you can sell a property with a title defect, such as a missing deed, a restrictive covenant, an absent freeholder, or a boundary discrepancy. These issues often stall an open-market sale because lenders get nervous, so a cash buyer who doesn't need a mortgage is frequently the fastest route. We buy properties with title problems across South Yorkshire.
Three steps, defect and all
No agent, no lender, and no relisting while the title problem gets sorted out.
Step 1
Tell us what the title saysFill in the form at the bottom of this page. Send the office copy entries too, if you have them.
Step 2
Get your offer the same dayIn writing, valid for 14 days, with the cash discount and the indemnity cost shown separately.
Step 3
You pick the completion dateWe buy on the title as it stands. Most sales complete in 7 to 28 days.
Written and reviewed by the South Yorkshire Property Buyers team.
Yes, you can sell, and here are the two numbers no one separates
If a solicitor or agent has told you the property "can't be sold", what they almost always mean is that retail mortgage buyers can't buy until the defect is fixed. That is a statement about lender panel rules, the UK Finance Mortgage Lenders' Handbook Part 2, where each lender lists the title classes and unresolved defects they will accept, not a statement about the law. Under the Land Registration Act 2002, possessory, qualified and good-leasehold titles all transfer cleanly. Cash buyers and specialist buyers transact on this stock every working day.
The reason many sellers end up with a poor outcome is that the industry has trained them to merge two separate numbers into one:
- The cash-purchase discount. The spread a regulated cash buyer applies to any property they buy, defect or not, to cover holding cost, refurbishment risk and capital tied up. Not specific to title defects, and not a fixed percentage. There are too many variables for a formula, so we price each property on what it actually is and put the figure in writing.
- The indemnity-insurance cost, what the defect actually adds. £20-£300 for possessory-title or absence-of-easement; £200-£800 for an existing restrictive-covenant breach; £1,000-£2,000 for serious covenant breaches on higher-value property. Stewart Title UK, CLS Property Insight and First Title Insurance underwrite these policies. The premium is paid once, binds successors in title, and is accepted by most mainstream lenders.
The unscrupulous corner of the quick-sale segment depends on those numbers staying merged. An opening offer pitched just under market value sounds reasonable; it then drops shortly before exchange, with the defect itself used as the explanation. Once cash discount and indemnity cost are separated in writing, with the indemnity quote on the table before you sign, that tactic collapses.
Want to check that against your own house? Get a free, independent estimate from Zoopla or Rightmove, then ask us what we would pay. Every property is different, so we price yours on what it actually is rather than on a formula. There is no fee and no obligation.
Five sellers we see, which one are you?
Roughly 95% of title-defect enquiries fall into one of five cohorts.
- A. The inheritor with no deeds. Mid-50s to mid-70s. Inherited a Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster or Barnsley terrace family-held since the 1950s-60s. Deeds either lost or only pre-1925 conveyances that don't form a continuous chain. The probate solicitor has said "possessory title". See also selling during probate.
- B. The long-term owner with a covenant breach. Owned 20-40 years. A side extension, loft conversion or change of use happened without checking the title. A buyer's solicitor has now flagged a restrictive covenant the work breached. Frequently fixable with a covenant indemnity policy.
- C. The boundary-dispute seller. 40s-60s. A falling-out over a fence, hedge or parking strip. At least one solicitor's letter or council complaint already exists. TA6 6th edition (mandatory for CQS firms from 30 March 2026) now compels disclosure of any past or present neighbour dispute.
- D. The auction-stock owner with possessory title. Bought at auction 2-10 years ago accepting "possessory title only, no indemnity" in the legal pack. The agent has refused the instruction or insisted on 10-20% below absolute-title comparables. Can't apply for upgrade until 12 years held.
- E. The unregistered-land or missing-easement owner. 50s-70s. Access strip not in the title, or a garden parcel never registered. Legal advice has been an adverse-possession claim under Schedule 6 LRA 2002 (widened by Brown v Ridley [2025] UKSC 7), a deed of grant from a neighbour, or an absence-of-easement indemnity.
The nine title defects we see most often
Nearly every enquiry sits in one of nine categories. Each has a routine fix, what differs is the timeline.
- Possessory title. Recognised class under section 9 LRA 2002. Upgrade to absolute after 12 years of unchallenged ownership on Form UT1. Sellable throughout. Indemnity £20-£300.
- Unregistered land. Around 15% of land in England and Wales remains unregistered. First registration on Form FR1 with a good root of title; usual outcome is possessory title initially, upgradable later.
- Lost or destroyed deeds. For registered property the HMLR register is the proof, the solicitor orders an official copy. For unregistered property, reconstitution by statutory declaration plus first registration under Practice Guide 60.
- Restrictive covenant breach. Routine fix: indemnity in 24-48 hours (no contact with the beneficiary in the past 12 months). Slower fix: section 84 LPA 1925 application to the Upper Tribunal, 12-24 months.
- Missing or unrecorded easement. No documented right of way. Fix: deed of grant from the neighbour, prescriptive easement claim (20 years as of right), or absence-of-easement indemnity.
- Boundary dispute or discrepancy. Determined boundary application under rule 118 LRR 2003; or, post-Brown v Ridley, adverse possession of the strip under Schedule 6.
- Adverse possession claims. Schedule 6 LRA 2002: 65-business-day counter-notice window; three exceptions in paragraph 5; two-year reapplication window in paragraph 6.
- Planning enforcement risk. From 25 April 2024 under the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, England runs a single 10-year limit. After the period expires, a Lawful Development Certificate under section 191 TCPA 1990 regularises the position.
- Registered charge or restriction. Old mortgage discharge never registered; Form A trust restriction; HMRC notice. Most routine paperwork. Form DS1 or removal under Form RX3.
Is it legal to sell? The state guarantee and what changed in 2025-2026
The Land Registration Act 2002 sections 9 to 11 set out four classes of registered title: absolute (full state guarantee), good leasehold, possessory, and qualified. All four can be sold. All four transfer cleanly on completion. The lender pool narrows as you move from absolute towards qualified; the law itself doesn't change. Four 2025-2026 developments materially shifted the landscape and most of the top-ranking national pages haven't integrated them:
- Brown v Ridley [2025] UKSC 7, the Supreme Court clarified that the 10-year "reasonable belief in ownership" period required under the boundary route to adverse possession (paragraph 5(4)(c) of Schedule 6 LRA 2002) doesn't have to be the 10 years immediately before the application. Any continuous 10-year period within the adverse possession suffices. Widens the route to register disputed boundary strips around Penistone, Wickersley, Maltby, Wath and the colliery villages. Nazir v Begum [2025] EWCA Civ 587 then refined the Schedule 6 procedure on competing applications. 2025 has been the most claimant-friendly year for adverse possession since the LRA 2002 came into force.
- TA6 Property Information Form 6th edition, mandatory for Conveyancing Quality Scheme firms from 30 March 2026. Sellers must now disclose any past or present neighbour dispute, alterations to boundary features, and known title issues. The disclosure landscape for boundary defects and historic informal arrangements is materially wider than under the 5th edition.
- Patarkatsishvili v Woodward-Fisher [2025] EWHC 265 (Ch), on 10 February 2025, Mr Justice Fancourt rescinded a £32.5m Notting Hill sale for fraudulent misrepresentation in TA6 replies. A TA6 reply made without honest belief in its truth is fraudulent misrepresentation; rescission is a real remedy; and under section 32 of the Limitation Act 1980 the six-year clock for fraud runs from discovery, not contract.
- Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, in force April 2025. Sellers and any business acting for them must disclose all material information, including known title defects. The Competition and Markets Authority has direct enforcement powers with civil penalties up to £300,000 for individuals or 10% of global turnover for businesses. A legitimate buyer will insist on full disclosure for exactly that reason.
Indemnity insurance, what it actually costs
Indemnity insurance is the workhorse of title-defect sales. A one-off premium buys a policy that protects the buyer (and successors in title and their mortgagee) against the financial consequences of the named defect crystallising. Once issued, the policy runs with the property in perpetuity. Realistic 2026 premium bands, drawn from the published rate sheets of the three principal UK underwriters (Stewart Title UK, CLS Property Insight, First Title Insurance):
Not sure where you stand?
Tell us about the property and we'll come back the same day with a written offer, valid for 14 days. No obligation, and no pressure either way.
Get my free cash offerThe single condition all underwriters apply: no contact must have been made with the affected party in the past 12 months. Once the covenant beneficiary, neighbour, council or church has been put on notice, the risk has materialised and the policy is no longer available. A seller who has said nothing about a long-dormant defect is in a stronger position to buy indemnity than one who has tried to negotiate.
The three routes: fix-first, cash buyer, or auction
Once you have an honest view of which defect you have and which lender pool will accept it, the choice of route is mechanical. The three routes differ on timeline, headline price, and the cost of getting there.
Route A. Fix the title first
An indemnity in 24 to 48 hours for routine cases, or 8 to 18 months for a first registration, then list as normal. Usually the most money if you can wait.
Route B. Auction
The legal pack discloses the defect and the room decides. Fees run 2.5 to 3.5% plus VAT, and on the Modern Method the buyer's reservation fee comes out of what they can bid.
Route C. Sell to us
A written offer with the cash discount and the indemnity cost shown separately. No lender, no chain, and completion in 7 to 28 days.
Want a real figure rather than an estimate?
Two minutes on the form is enough. We price on the property itself, not to a set percentage, and it's our best offer first time.
See what we'd payA worked South Yorkshire example: £200,000 Sheffield terrace with possessory title
For a typical £200,000 Sheffield S5 mid-terrace held on possessory title since a 1990s probate (deeds lost), the realistic comparison isn't headline vs headline: it is headline minus indemnity, fees, carrying cost, and fall-through risk. The Route C figure below is an illustration used to show how the costs stack up. It isn't a quote, and it isn't a percentage we work to. Every property is priced on its own facts.
| Factor | Route A, fix & sell | Route B, auction | Route C, cash buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Headline price | £196,000 (98%) | £164,000 (82%) | £168,000 (illustrative) |
| Indemnity / FR1 / legal fix | -£250 (possessory indemnity) | £0 (buyer takes on) | £0 (buyer takes on) |
| Agent / auctioneer fees | -£2,352 (1.2%) | -£5,400 (3% + VAT + pack) | £0 |
| Conveyancing | -£1,500 | -£1,200 | £0 (covered via the buyer's panel solicitor) |
| Carrying cost (council tax, insurance, maintenance) | -£4,500 (9 months) | -£1,100 (8 weeks) | -£275 (7 to 28 days) |
| Fall-through risk allowance | -£800 (one chip) | -£300 | £0 |
| Net proceeds | ~£186,598 | ~£156,000 | ~£167,725 |
The headline gap of around £28,000 between Route A and Route C narrows to roughly £19,000 net of everything, and a single open-market chain collapse cuts that further. Even after all of that, Route A still comes out ahead on money in this example, and for a seller with low monthly costs and no deadline it is the better route. Route C isn't selling a bigger number. It is selling a fixed completion date and a sale that doesn't depend on a chain or a lender. An executor paying empty-home costs, or a seller with a hard exchange date, is buying certainty, and only you can judge what that is worth. Sheffield's 100% empty-home council-tax premium after 12 months pushes a Band B vacant property to roughly £3,674 of additional carry per year. For broader route comparison see cash buyer vs estate agent and all the fast-sale routes compared.
Selling a title-defect property in South Yorkshire, the local picture
National content treats South Yorkshire as a footnote. The reality is that Sheffield, Doncaster, Rotherham and Barnsley have a disproportionate concentration of title-defect stock, driven by post-industrial land-use history, large pre-1925 unregistered family-held holdings, and a high proportion of older terraced and back-to-back housing with historic restrictive covenants. The Land Registry's Title Descriptor dataset shows possessory-title properties in South Yorkshire trading at a 5-15% discount to absolute-title comparables: £10,000-£33,000 on Sheffield's £222,000 February-2026 average and Doncaster's £174,000 March-2026 average. The discount reflects the narrower mortgage-buyer pool, the indemnity premium, and the small residual upgrade-application risk.
The four dominant local title-defect patterns
- Sheffield S7 / S11 / S6 Edwardian terraces with lost deeds. Probate-driven cases where the deeds went missing in the 1990s. Typical outcome: possessory title, 8-12% open-market discount, 7 to 28 days on Route C.
- Doncaster colliery-row possessory title. Bentley, Mexborough, Stainforth, Hatfield, Hyde Park. National Coal Board successor titles and historic council disposals where root of title is thin. Coal Authority overlay (now Mining Remediation Authority since 22 May 2024) adds CON29M searches that lengthen open-market timelines.
- Rotherham informal boundary strips. Wickersley, Maltby, Wath, Eastwood, Templeborough. Decades-old fence lines that don't match the registered title plan. Brown v Ridley now widens the Schedule 6 route for these.
- Barnsley unregistered garden parcels and access strips. Athersley, Wombwell, Darfield, Goldthorpe, Thurnscoe, Bolton-on-Dearne. Properties where part of the garden or the access alley was never registered when the parent title was first registered post-1925.
Anonymised regional case patterns
From our 2024-2026 South Yorkshire instruction log:
- Sheffield S7 Edwardian terrace, possessory title (deeds lost 1990s): 9% mortgage-buyer discount; sold cash at £242,000 against £266,000 absolute-title comparable; indemnity premium £180.
- Rotherham semi, 1970s side extension breaching a 1920s building-restriction covenant: indemnity quote £620; mortgage chain held; sold via Route A at full asking minus the £620.
- Doncaster Bentley terrace, no recorded right of way over the rear ginnel: absence-of-easement indemnity £180; sold to a mortgaged buyer within 7 weeks.
- Barnsley colliery-village smallholding, unregistered 0.4-acre garden parcel: cash sale on the existing title; Form FR1 for the garden parcel lodged on completion; 21-day transaction.
Your own SRA-regulated solicitor, non-negotiable
This is the most important practical step a title-defect seller can take. The seller's own solicitor: separately instructed, separately paid, separately answerable to the seller, is the only person in the transaction whose duty runs only to the seller. Any buyer who pushes the seller towards the buyer's nominated firm has failed the test. South Yorkshire title-defect work is competently handled by a number of SRA-regulated firms readers can verify on the SRA register:
- Taylor Emmet (Sheffield), property litigation team handling title disputes and complex conveyancing.
- Banner Jones Solicitors (Sheffield, Chesterfield, Dronfield, Mansfield). SRA 493083; CQS-accredited residential conveyancing and dispute resolution.
- Switalskis Solicitors (Doncaster, Sheffield, Wakefield and eight other Yorkshire offices). SRA 614622; CQS-accredited residential property team.
- Foys Solicitors (Doncaster DN1 3JZ head office, Sheffield, Rotherham, Worksop, Retford). SRA 48529; founded 1972.
- Howells Solicitors (Sheffield), residential conveyancing including unregistered and defective-title work.
- Graysons (Sheffield), adverse possession claims, first registrations and declarations of trust.
- Gardner Champion (Sheffield), boundary, title and possession matters.
This isn't an endorsement and not an exhaustive list. SYPB doesn't refer to or receive referrals from any firm named above. Verify any firm independently on the SRA register at sra.org.uk and on the Law Society's Find a Solicitor directory. Select on the basis of relevant title-defect experience and quoted fees.
How to verify a cash buyer, the six-check playbook
1. Companies House
Search the buyer's legal entity. Check active status, filed accounts, a real registered office and named directors.
2. Proof of funds
A dated PDF bank statement on a named business account, or a solicitor's undertaking. Bridging finance isn't cash.
3. TPO and NAPB membership
Check the TPO directory yourself. If a buyer claims membership and isn't listed, the claim is false.
4. Reviews with depth
Look for real detail: possessory title, an indemnity premium, a Companies House check. Stock five stars dated in one week are a flag.
5. Footer signals
Company number, registered office, ICO registration and a complaints procedure. Missing signals are signals in themselves.
6. Your own solicitor
SRA-regulated, instructed and paid by you, never the buyer's nominated firm. Their duty runs to you alone.
Working to a deadline?
Tell us the date. Most sales complete in 7 to 28 days, and if we can't work to your timescale we'll say so straight away.
Talk to us todayA legitimate buyer welcomes all six checks. A free additional safeguard for every registered owner: sign up to HM Land Registry Property Alert, emails you whenever an official search or application is lodged against the monitored title (~857,432 owners registered as of mid-2025).
Title-defect property in South Yorkshire?
One written offer, valid for 14 days. Cash discount and indemnity cost shown separately. Completion in 7 to 28 days. Full TA6 disclosure built into the contract from the outset. We are a small local team buying with our own funds, so you deal with the people who make the decision. No estate agents, no fees, no pressure.
Get Your Free Cash OfferThe honest gut-check, should you really sell to a cash buyer?
Run three tests honestly. We would rather you walked away than took a route that doesn't fit.
- Deadline test. Is your exchange-or-walk deadline within 12 weeks (mid-chain collapse, executor paying empty-home premiums, a covenant beneficiary's "ransom" demand, a registered charge with a deadline)? If yes, Route A's 22-40 week realistic timeline simply doesn't fit. If no, Route A can work.
- Carry-cost test. Are your monthly costs (mortgage interest + council tax + insurance + maintenance for an empty property) above £600? If yes, Route A's carrying costs compound month by month and the gap between the two routes narrows. It doesn't always close, so work it out on your own numbers rather than assuming. Sheffield's 100% empty-home premium after 12 months pushes this higher.
- Stress test. Will the sale fail if anything goes wrong: a chain collapse, a buyer's lender pulling out on the title query, a survey-driven price chip, a renewed objection from a covenant beneficiary? Title-defect sales nationally have estimated fall-through rates above the 24% Q1 2026 baseline. Each fall-through resets the carrying-cost clock and adds £2,000-£3,500 of professional fees.
If at least two of three tests point to cash, Route C is rational. If only one or none, Route A wins on price. See also our pages on selling during probate, selling a house in poor condition and selling a house that needs repairs.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Possessory title is a recognised class under section 9 LRA 2002 and transfers cleanly on completion. Most mainstream lenders decline possessory titles registered under 12 years, or require indemnity insurance with an acceptable UK Finance Handbook Part 2 entry. Cash buyers don't face that Part 2 constraint.
Yes. For registered property the HMLR register is the proof of title; the solicitor orders an official copy. For unregistered property, title is reconstituted by statutory declaration plus first registration on Form FR1 under Practice Guide 60, usually possessory in the first instance, upgradable to absolute after 12 years. Reconstitution takes 6-18 months and doesn't block a cash sale on the existing root of title in the meantime.
Yes. Approximately 15% of land in England and Wales remains unregistered. Either complete first registration before listing (typically 8-18 months at HMLR), or sell to a buyer who agrees to apply for first registration on completion. A cash buyer that routinely handles first-registration stock will accept the property subject to a good root of title, an epitome and a satisfactory statutory declaration.
Usually not, unless the title has been registered with possessory class for at least 12 years and the lender's UK Finance Mortgage Lenders' Handbook Part 2 entry permits it, or an acceptable indemnity policy is in place. The practical constraint is the lender, not the law. Lender criteria move quarterly, confirm with a regulated FCA broker before relying on any single lender.
For routine residential cases, possessory-title and absence-of-easement premiums sit in a £20-£300 band; restrictive-covenant indemnity for an existing breach typically £200-£800; serious breaches on higher-value property £1,000-£2,000. Stewart Title UK, CLS Property Insight and First Title Insurance underwrite these policies. The premium is paid once, binds successors in title, and is accepted by most mainstream lenders provided no contact has been made with the affected party in the past 12 months.
In South Yorkshire, 5-15% below comparable absolute-title homes: about £10,000-£33,000 on Sheffield (£222,000 average) and Doncaster (£174,000 average) values. The discount reflects the narrower mortgage-buyer pool and the small residual upgrade-application risk. Legitimate cash buyers price the actual legal risk rather than the perceived risk, so the cash discount is often narrower than the open-market discount the agent assumed.
Currently 8-18 months for a straightforward application from lodging to issue of the new title number. HMLR's Strategy 2025+ and Business Plan 2026+ have committed to AI-assisted automation and faster decisions on routine cases. Complex cases (contested title, missing root deeds, boundary uncertainty) run longer. A cash buyer can complete on the property before first registration concludes, with the application transferring to the new registered proprietor on completion.
Brown v Ridley [2025] UKSC 7 is the Supreme Court decision on paragraph 5(4)(c) of Schedule 6 LRA 2002. The 10-year "reasonable belief" period required under the boundary route to adverse possession need not be the 10 years immediately before the application, any continuous 10-year period within the adverse possession suffices. Nazir v Begum [2025] EWCA Civ 587 refined the Schedule 6 procedure further. 2025 has been the most claimant-friendly year for adverse possession since the LRA 2002 came into force.
Mandatory for Conveyancing Quality Scheme firms from 30 March 2026. Sellers must disclose any past or present neighbour dispute, alterations to boundary features, and known title issues. The disclosure landscape is materially wider than under the 5th edition. A TA6 reply made without honest belief in its truth is fraudulent misrepresentation under Patarkatsishvili v Woodward-Fisher [2025] EWHC 265 (Ch), with the six-year limitation clock running from discovery under section 32 Limitation Act 1980.
Only where a TA6 reply was made without honest belief, or where a known material fact wasn't disclosed under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. Honest answers (including Not Known where there is doubt), with disclosure on the TA6 and supply of any indemnity policy, are the seller's defence. The DMCC Act is enforced by the CMA with penalties up to £300,000 or 10% of global turnover. A cash buyer that builds full disclosure into the contract removes the long-tail risk.
SYPB can complete in 7 to 28 days, with the fastest cases completing in 7 days where the title is clean and indemnity is already in place. No lender, no valuation, no chain. Where first registration of unregistered land is required, the contract completes on the existing root of title and the buyer's solicitor lodges Form FR1 on completion. Open-market routes realistically run 22-40 weeks; auction 8-14 weeks.
Run the six-check playbook. (1) Companies House: active status, filed accounts, registered office, named directors. (2) Proof of funds, dated PDF bank statement within 30 days, or a solicitor's undertaking. (3) Live TPO and NAPB directory check. (4) Reviews with depth. (5) Footer signals. (6) Your own SRA-regulated solicitor.
- Selling a house in poor condition, your options
- Selling a house that needs repairs
- Selling during probate, the executor's route
- Inherited property, sister page
- Sell house fast Sheffield, the location hub
- Sell house fast Doncaster
- Sell house fast Rotherham
- Sell house fast Barnsley
- Sell house fast Wakefield
- Cash buyer vs estate agent, net-after-costs
- All the fast-sale routes compared
- How the SYPB process works
- Patarkatsishvili v Woodward-Fisher [2025]: TA6 disclosure for UK sellers
This page is a general guide and not legal, tax or financial advice. Every title-defect case is different. Before making decisions, take advice from an SRA-regulated solicitor for TA6 and conveyancing, a RICS-registered surveyor where boundary or valuation issues arise, a regulated FCA mortgage broker for any lender question, and the free services at Citizens Advice and MoneyHelper. Capital Gains Tax, Inheritance Tax and Stamp Duty implications remain the parties' responsibility, independent advice from a Chartered Tax Adviser is recommended where applicable.
The house can still be sold. When people say a property "can't be sold", they nearly always mean high street lenders won't lend on it yet, so mortgage buyers drop out. That is a lender rule, not the law. Ownership still passes normally on completion. Cash buyers don't need a lender, so a sale can go ahead while the paperwork gets sorted out later.
Trying again with mortgage buyers will probably end the same way, because it is their lender saying no, not them. You have three honest options. Fix the title first and sell on the open market, which usually gets the best price but takes the longest. Sell at auction. Or sell to a cash buyer who takes it as it stands. Choose on what matters more, money or time.
Usually no, and this one catches people out. A one-off insurance policy can often cover an old title problem, but insurers won't offer it if the neighbour, the council or the covenant holder has been contacted about it in the past year. Raising it can turn a quiet problem into a live one that costs you far more. Speak to your own solicitor before you speak to anybody else.
Almost certainly not in serious trouble. Old work that breaks a rule written into the deeds is one of the most common things we see, and there is normally a routine fix. A one-off insurance policy can cover the buyer and their lender against it. Your solicitor will tell you whether that works in your case. What you must not do is stay quiet about it on the forms.
Yes, you do. The seller's information form asks about any dispute with a neighbour, past or present, and about changes to fences and boundaries. It feels risky to admit it, but hiding it is the far bigger risk. A buyer who later proves you knew and said nothing can come after you years down the line. Being upfront is the best protection you have.
We won't drop the price over anything you have told us about upfront. Our written offer holds for 14 days and is based on the facts we have at the time. Being straight with you, if something genuinely new comes to light during the legal work, a defect nobody knew about, the price may have to change. That is exactly why we ask for everything at the start.
You can sell it as it is, and we buy properties this way regularly. But if you aren't under pressure, fixing the title first is usually worth more to you. A clean title brings mortgage buyers back in, so you can aim for a full open market price rather than a cash price, which will be lower. We don't work to a percentage, because there are too many variables, so we won't put a number on your property until we have spoken to you. The trade is money against time, and only you can weigh that up.
Use your own solicitor if you can. With a title problem there is a strong case for it, because your own solicitor works for you and nobody else. Make sure they are SRA regulated and have handled title work before. We can cover your legal fees if you use our panel solicitor instead, but that is your choice and never a condition of our offer. We will never push you off your own solicitor.
Agents often say no because they can see the sale collapsing at the legal stage, not because the house is worthless. The usual route is blocked, the other routes aren't. Auction houses and cash buyers deal with this kind of property every week. Send us what your solicitor has found and we will give you a written offer the same day.
No, and the two things are dealt with separately. We buy in any condition, and we actually prefer properties that need work. There are no viewings to arrange and nothing to tidy or repair before we look at it. The condition affects what the property is worth. The title affects which buyers can get a mortgage. We price both openly and show you how we got there.
No. The offer is yours to take or leave, and it stands for 14 days so nobody is rushing you. You can show it to your solicitor, get a second opinion, or put the house on the open market instead and compare. We would far rather you walked away than felt pushed. If the open market is the better route for your situation, we will tell you so.
Guides that might help right now
Cash Buyer Scams: Red Flags and Checks
The tactics to watch for, including the late price drop blamed on a defect, and the checks that stop them.
Read guide →
The TA6 Disclosure Case Every Seller Should Know
Why a 2025 High Court ruling made honest answers on the property information form matter far more than they used to.
Read guide →
Cash Buyer vs Auction
How the two routes really compare on fees, timing and certainty once the auction fee stack is taken into account.
Read guide →Selling a property with a title defect
Tell us which defect you're dealing with and what your solicitor has said. We'll put an offer in writing, valid for 14 days, with the indemnity cost shown separately.
Our promise to you: We will never pressure you into a sale. Your enquiry is completely confidential. If we make you an offer and it isn't right for you, there is absolutely no obligation to proceed.