1 July 2021
Follow me @Linda Derrick1
Facebook Linda Derrick for Ridgeway East
In 2014, HPC decided to transfer four allotments and other land to a charity now called Hughenden Community Support Trust – a transfer I believe is unlawful.
I’ve blogged about this before and I’m going to blog again because it involves the transfer of land worth at least £80,000; HPC has already incurred tens of thousands of pounds in solicitors’ fees (HCST’s as well as its own); and HPC will incur thousands of pounds in rent to HCST each year for nearly 100 years.
This must be the largest and most important financial transaction that HPC has made in decades. You might therefore think that the information required to account for this transaction would be carefully recorded and readily available.
As a councillor, I am corporately responsible for decisions on this transaction. You might therefore think that, like other councillors, I would have immediate access to this information.
But you would be wrong.
When I became a councillor in May, I asked for a copy of the legal advice provided by a barrister in 2014 which was said to contain the legal case for giving away the land. I was refused a copy but eventually got to read the advice. As I suspected, the barrister was not asked to advise on the ownership of the land. He was not able to advise on HCST’s legal case for claiming ownership because there was no legal case to consider. Indeed HCST has never set out its legal case for claiming ownership of the land.
So why you might ask – and I have many times – why, oh why is HPC giving away this land? It really baffles me.
Then out of the blue, on 1 June, the Clerk informed me that “councillors over many years have reached the conclusion that the land was erroneously registered [by the Land Registry] in the Council’s name and that that situation must be rectified.” Now that was news to me. This was the first time I had been informed this was Council’s position.
If the Clerk was correct, it really mattered.
According to BP Collins, HPC’s solicitors for the transfer, HPC has absolute title to the land; HPC is the registered proprietor of the land with the Land Registry and there is no record of HPC acting as custodian trustee. BP Collins added that, if land was held by a custodian trustee, then this was usually recorded on the register.
If the Clerk is right and HPC has not followed BP Collins’s advice:-
- Council has decided at some point that HCST is the owner of the land (and presumably has substantive proof of this in the form of title deeds or something similar);
- a mistake has therefore been made in the register, so that for some reason the register shows, wrongly, that HPC is the owner of the land;
- there is no transfer to be made, but HPC needs to ask the Land Registry for the register to be rectified to show that HCST is the freehold proprietor of the land;
- Council then needs to provide the evidence to the Land Registry for concluding that HCST owns the land.
However, if the Clerk is wrong and HPC had followed BP Collin’s legal advice, (as I had assumed for years): -
- HPC accepted it was the registered proprietor and the register correctly shows that HPC is the owner of the land. Nevertheless, HPC had decided to dispose of the land by giving it to HCST;
- HPC then has to legally transfer the title by filling in a transfer form and make an application to the Land Registry to have HCST recorded in the register as the freehold proprietor of the land in place of HPC;
- HPC is then not complying with the Local Government Act and the Small Holdings and Allotments Act 1908 (because HPC is not getting best value for the land and the transfer of allotments is restricted);
- Council also needs to ask itself exactly why it is transferring the land if HPC owns it - which is the question I, and other residents, have been asking for years.
So weeks ago, on 3 June, I asked the Clerk the obvious question – when did Council decide the register was wrong and on what evidence.
No response.
I was also worried that, if Council had decided the register needed rectifying, then BP Collins should not have filled in transfer forms and asked for the titles to be transferred as I believe they have done.
So weeks ago, I asked the Clerk for copies of the instructions that HPC gave to BP Collins on the transfer. For example, has BP Collins been instructed that HCST owns the land? Or that HPC owns the land?
I also asked for BP Collins’ advice in the light of these instructions. And I asked for direct access to BP Collins and a meeting with them.
No response.
Weeks ago, including at Full Council on 8 June, I also asked the Clerk which firm of solicitors was doing which work as already some applications had been rejected by the Land Registry and it was not clear to councillors which firm of solicitors was responsible. There is also no way for Council to check that work by the solicitors is being correctly invoiced.
No response.
The largest and most important financial transaction that HPC has taken in decades, But, weeks later, no response to my requests for information on critical decisions. So either this information has not been carefully recorded and is not readily available (or available at all) - or it is being withheld. Or perhaps both.
Finally, weeks ago, I suggested that Council could clarify the confusion by voting on the following motion:-
“Council resolves that:-
(i) the land with titles BM352857, BM358088, BM358090, BM352511 and BM9455 belongs to Hughenden Community Support Trust because the titles of the land were registered with the Land Registry erroneously; and
(ii) the Clerk should instruct its solicitors to withdraw the TR1s for this land and instead ask the Land Registry to rectify the register.”
I suggested the Chairman might like to move this motion as it accords with his stated position and not mine.
No response.
So, on 16 June, I formally gave notice under Standing Orders for this motion to go on the agenda for the July Council meeting.
It would be an opportunity for Council to decide this question and provide clear instructions to the solicitors. It would also give councillors the opportunity to provide the evidence for their views and come to well considered decisions.
Yes – you’ve guessed - no response.
Perhaps others don’t want to provide clarity or provide evidence for their views.
But you have to ask what on earth is happening?
Comments