Attorney is sole registered Attorney for Donor.
Donor has lost capacity and his property is being sold.
However, LPA hs been registered with Donor’s name as:
First name - Joe Bloggs
Surname - Bloggs
Now, his name is simply Joe Bloggs, not Joe Bloggs Bloggs.
Buyers’ Solicitors refuse to proceed. they have requested a Stat Dec from the OPG to confirm it is the same person, but I doubt they would entertain it.
The client prepared and registered himself.
Has anyone come across anything like this or have any suggestions please?
I sympathise and hope someone can assist with your specific problem.
However, if not, I am aware of a similar case albeit based on other facts, which may be instructive. In brief, a relative [an investment advisor/will-writer] took out an attorney Grant to an estate but obviously failed to check the house deeds first so had a Grant in a name of the deceased which differed from the name on the Land Registry, and presumably was too embarrassed to request a corrected alias Grant.
So applied to Land Registry to be the registered proprietor, in order to give good title. I have no idea of the relative costs/timescales of dealing with OPG/Land Registry, but you did ask for “any suggestions”
It is a pain, but I think it is the Buyers’ Solicitor being overzealous. The way I see it, it could easily be dealt with on the basis that it is a middle name that he doesn’t use (all beit , it looks strange).
Also, surely a Stat Dec from the Certificate Provider might provide some peace of mind to them.
We had a similar Case and made an application to COP “to recognise that Joe Bloggs was the same person as Joe Bloggs Bloggs” It was pre Covid but came through in 8 eight weeks.
In situations where we have acted for a buyer when the Seller is represented by an Attorney and the LPA shows incorrect names, we ensure that a Statement of Truth is provided by the Attorney that the Donor is one and the same as the registered proprietor and that the LPA has not been revoked or cancelled. Not (as yet) ever had an issue with HMLR relying on that.
