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.