Hampshire property blog - March 10
Welcome to the March edition of the Hampshire property
blog. This month we are looking at land registration and the
implications for the disclosure of property prices.
property prices - do I have to reveal all?
I had an interesting question from a client last week, who
asked, having just completed his purchase, if he had to disclose
the price, as he was aware of websites giving the values of houses
in various locations.
When I started work, the price was never shown on the land
register, and if any one had said "web site" they would have been
pointed to the nearest crypt.
Since the land register became open to the public almost twenty
years ago, it has been possible to search for details of
properties. In 2001, the land registration rules were changed to
allow the price to be entered on the title to the property, which
means that it is now possible to find out what the Jones' paid for
10 Acacia Avenue, and thus to discuss the state of the local
property market at the next grisly dinner party or barbecue.
The registry can pass this price information to websites, and
can charge for this. Licensed websites are unlikely, in my view, to
agree to remove the price details when they have paid for this
information, and they can argue that the price paid is in the
public realm anyway.
The land registration rules do state that the registry must
enter the information wherever practicable to do so, so I suppose
one could try and argue that it is not practicable to work out the
price for some reason, such as that the price was not wholly paid
in cash terms, eg by saying that the price was made up of money
plus shares, or if the deal involved future overage payments or the
like.
However, this is not the most practical way of buying in Acacia
Avenue, and these types of arrangements often bring their own
problems.
It seems that we will have to accept that, whilst it may be
terribly vulgar and un-British, there is little one can do to
prevent nosy neighbours from finding out what you paid for your
property.
