Mortgage question

[Andy Dingley]

Not at all true! The land registry might assume some responsibility for becoming the official definition of boundaries, but there can often be some complex issue about access rights or relations with neighbours that's recorded on the deeds, but doesn't fit into the land registry's data model and so might otherwise become lost. This is usually a loss for the property owner.

I currently spend lots of my evenings standing around with the neighbours staring at orange tape on sticks and worrying about just such a boundary issue, much of which would become a lot easier if only we could turn up a copy of the deeds from before the 1960s.

[Jim]

I stand corrected, you're quite right. I should have written "meaningless in this context".

[meow2222]

Theres a lot more to it of course. The house was believed to be ok at purchase time, but has since turned out to have major problems. As someone said, its effectively saleable as a building plot. Mortgage co surveys are far from thorough, so it doesnt look like negligence AFAICS, just an ignorant buyer.

NT

[TheScullster]

"Bob Mannix" wrote

Same here for house purchased 2002

Phil

[Dave Plowman (News)]

For deeds substitute the present day electronic version. It will have logged the charge on the property and stop it being sold until arrangements have been made to pay off that charge.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Thought the whole idea of the BS survey was to make sure the property was ok to lend money on? Of course this can't take into account a drop in value, but this sounds more than just that?

[meow2222]

Such surveys are far from thorough though.

NT

[Andrew Gabriel]

I'm not expert here either, but I thought once discharged from bankruptcy, you can't be persued for debts before then. However, I've heard that some banks are now persuing people for debts which they should not be, so it's probably worth checking if this is happening in that case.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes, I wrote and asked for mine, and they were only too happy to free the space up in their expensive paper record centre. Mine go back to 1650 for the land ownership, and cover a significant area of the town, very much larger than the current plot, probably now with more than 100 houses on it.

[sm_jamieson]

Better check you don't still own the freehold on all that land ! Be hard to go into negative equity on that. You might be able to claim back-rent, or evict the orphans and peasants ;-} Simon.

[Andrew Gabriel]

That's not what a charge is -- the owners cannot have a charge.

The owners would have to pay off the negative equity in addition to the offer they had accepted on the house, which is impossible, as there wouldn't be any negative equity if they were prepared to offered enough to clear the charge.

[Andrew Gabriel]

one was wrecked by the owner digging tunnels under it, and disassembling bits of it. Eventually, the pavement and road collapsed into one of the tunnels, and the council managed to get a court injunction banning the chap from the place. They then had to fill all the tunnels with concrete and rebuild the road, and put scaffolding structure support in. They were suing the chap for £300k for their emergency work on the house, but I don't know what happened. I expected the plot would be sold to pay for that, but there's no indication it has been.

[Andrew Gabriel]

and the BS may be able to claim from the surveyors for their losses after they've recovered everything they can from the borrowers, but the borrowers won't be able to claim anything, as it wasn't their survey.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Of course. But given the sums likely to be involved, a decent solicitor acting for the house owner might be able to make something of it. The BS aren't entitled to be reimbursed twice. They are the one who insist the property they lend on is sufficient security on its own. And charge the customer for making sure this is so. Of course hindsight shows some were more interested in lending money regardless. But this doesn't mean the borrower is totally to blame for accepting their offer. After all, they are the professionals in this field - the borrower the amateur.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Dave Plowman (News)" saying something like:

It happens. I knew of a retired couple who'd ploughed their savings and investments into buying a farm in the Scottish Borders. Yes, the paperwork all appeared to be present and correct and the purchase went ahead. Everything was fine until the Clydesdale Bank turned up looking for its mortgage money from the previous occupier... A bent solicitor in Scotland, an incompetent solicitor in England, a crooked bastard of a PO, and a penny-pinching buyer.

If only the buyer had employed a local independent solicitor instead of trying to do the purchase from Blackpool and save himself a few quid.