75 year old sold 25 year mortgage

antrobus

inmypocketnottheirs wrote: »

Hmmmm, even if the property was in his sole name, the surviving wife will still own half of the beneficial interest.

The property was in Scotland. Scottish law does not recognise the concept of beneficial ownership in the context of jointly held property. But it does however recognise the concept of "common ownership and joint ownership of property". Whatever that means; Scottish property law is quite different - they only recently got around to abolishing feudalism.

toddle2u wrote: »

As with most things like this you do not get the full picture at first.

I know exactly what you mean.

toddle2u wrote: »

Ultimately it looks like she is going to have to sell the property and pay off the secured creditors from the estate and move into rented accommadation.

I suspect that is correct. There might be some mileage in the widow contacting Citizens Advice or a solictor (or whatever is the Scottish equivalent) to establish whether or not she has any right to occupy the property. It certainly would be worth her while finding out what her correct course of action should be. She might, for example, be better off allowing GE Capital to repossess the property so that she qualifies as 'homeless' and assistance from her LA. I don't really know, I don't know anything about Scottish law. Which, I suspect, puts me in the exact same position as every one else.


P.S. I can't understand why other posters are so concerned about "where the money went". Apart from morbid curiousity I can see no reason what the earthly point would be. The money has been spent. It is gone. It is no more.

jimjames

dunstonh wrote: »

Lets look at a complaint and lets assume its successful. That would be to put the estate back into the position it was before the transaction too place. Before the transaction he had £175k of debt on higher interest products. after the transaction he had a lower interest rate product and was therefore saving money. So, to go back into the position it would have been, the estate would have to pay more money back and reduce the value of the estate even more.

I think this is the most appropriate answer so far.

@OP - Think about what they want to gain from this, if the solution is as above it won't actually help them much.

The suggestion to speak to CAB or the National Debtline is probably the best way to find out their options

http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/

opinions4u

antrobus wrote: »

P.S. I can't understand why other posters are so concerned about "where the money went". Apart from morbid curiousity I can see no reason what the earthly point would be. The money has been spent. It is gone. It is no more.

1. There may be other assets in the estate that haven't been identified. These could be substantial and benefit the widow.

2. It would help focus the mind on what the problem was (the spender, not the lender).

3. We'd love to know that the selfish old sod croaked having spent it all on numerous pieces of tottie in their early 20s!

Lance

toddle2u wrote: »

Came on here asking for genuine advice for a friend and instead get abuse from a load of wanabee's and IFA's who condone such behaviour as rightful.

Whilst I agree with you that this kind of lending has wrecked the Western worlds economy I would suggest this gentleman had every right to do what he wanted with his finances unless you are saying he was mentally ill. He applied for a mortgage and got it! Maybe the equity in the house covered the risk.

When you are very old with a valuable house and no mortgage you may get a large mortgage and have a great time then die and leave some enraged kids ranting about irresposible lending. If we could go back in time and you could speak to this gentleman he may well have told you to mind your own business!

antrobus

opinions4u wrote: »

1. There may be other assets in the estate that haven't been identified. These could be substantial and benefit the widow.

Maybe, but very unlikely I'd have thought. Given that the chap died in 2003 any 'substantial' assets would have come to light by now. If he's spent the money on buying property or shares then post-mortem correspondence would have already revealed their existence. And presumably the widow would have noticed if there were significant quantities of gold bullion or silver coins stuffed under the mattress.

opinions4u wrote: »

2. It would help focus the mind on what the problem was (the spender, not the lender).

What the problem was doesn't really matter now that the spender is deceased,

opinions4u wrote: »

3. We'd love to know that the selfish old sod croaked having spent it all on numerous pieces of tottie in their early 20s!

That's more like it!

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say gambling. Not that it matters one little bit.

RecoveringAlcoholic

And presumably the widow would have noticed if there were significant quantities of gold bullion or silver coins stuffed under the mattress.

This was stored under the mattress at the girlfriends property.

de1amo

i dont know why this is shocking! isnt equity release just a mortgage in disguise--loads of elderly are enjoying their retirements funded by these!

jamesd

Yes, it is. The distressing things here involve the large amounts of borrowed money and apparently unknowing wife, who's left with a very unpleasant problem.

ILW

jamesd wrote: »

Yes, it is. The distressing things here involve the large amounts of borrowed money and apparently unknowing wife, who's left with a very unpleasant problem.

True, but cannot see why OP thinks it's the banks fault.

jamesd

That would initially appear to be better than blaming the deceased husband, so it's understandable. Then the rest of the circumstances came to light and hopefully clarified the matter, distressing though that clarification is.