Registered Charges and Restrictions
Mortgages and consents a sale needs
A registered charge is a mortgage or other security recorded against a title. A restriction is a separate entry blocking registration of a sale until a stated condition is met. Charges sit in the charges register; restrictions sit in the proprietorship register. HM Land Registry records both for England and Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland use their own registers.
What This Means
Propbar lists active mortgages, discharged mortgages and other charges, then restrictions alongside them. Many mortgaged homes also carry a lender consent restriction. That one is routine: the seller's mortgage is redeemed on completion and the entry goes with it. The entries that slow a sale are different. A restriction needing a management company's certificate, or a second owner's signature, depends on someone outside your transaction acting. These entries set your completion date, so they are the ones that matter. This is one of the few things on this report that lenders and insurers price directly: your lender will not release funds until every active charge is set to be discharged.
Practical Advice
- Ask your conveyancer to confirm every active charge will be redeemed and removed on completion.
- Ask the seller's conveyancer which restriction entries need a third party's consent or certificate.
- Ask your conveyancer to obtain the managing agent's fee and turnaround for a certificate of compliance.
- Ask your conveyancer whether a Form A restriction appears, since that signals owners holding as tenants in common.
Key Points
- Where a sole surviving owner sells under a Form A restriction, the buyer needs a second trustee appointed so the sale can be registered.
- Where a restriction needs a management company's certificate of compliance, Form RXC is HM Land Registry's optional form for supplying that certificate in a format the registry accepts.
Additional Information
A discharged mortgage stays visible as history and binds nothing. Scotland calls the equivalent security a standard security, not a charge. Northern Ireland records burdens in Part III of the folio. Neither uses the England and Wales restriction forms, so a Form A or Form RXC reference means nothing there.