Land Registry mistakenly restricted my property

matthamilton

Hi All,
Hope this is the right place to post this, as in fact, I am not actually bankrupt at all. The Land Registry however has decided that due to me having the same name as someone who is, they have put a 'notice of restriction' against my property.

They sent me two letters *dated the same date* one asking for help tracking down this person of the same name, and enquiring if I am them or not and a chance to reply. The second, dated the same date, says that they have gone ahead and put a restriction on my property as they believe I am the person who has been bankrupt.

I have called them up to find out what is going on, and was told "Oh well we might have received more information that same day that lead us to believe it was you".

Co-incidentally I found this out on the same day I was looking to re-mortgage the flat for a better deal. I guess that is going to have to wait now until this gets sorted out and I check with each of the credit reference agencies to make sure they don't have this false information. Considering how notoriously bad they are at getting things right, I'm a bit worried. When I was in University, I got my credit record and there was a whole load of store card info on their from a woman with the same surname and address as me -- I lived at a hall of residence with 400 other people.

Anyone know what legal recourse I have against them? I don't think its right I have to take time out of work to sort through this mess just because they deem two people with the same name in the same city are the same person. Isn't arbitrarily recording someone as bankrupt who isn't defamation?

The Land Registry wouldn't tell me what information they did have that lead them to believe I am that person (ironic). But I am going to try again tomorrow. There is also a court case listed on the document, but the courts were closed by the time I tried to call them today. I'm trying to find out if this has become a further problem, and if there is more than just an incompetent mistake on behalf of the Land Registry and it is an identity theft issue.

-Matt

Tupperware_Queen

you can search the insolvency website, which should throw up the details of the person who is bankrupt.

What a pain for you..hope you get it sorted xx

debtinfo

contact the OR involved

Is it a restriction or merely a notice of the bankruptcy

matthamilton

debtinfo wrote: »

contact the OR involved

Is it a restriction or merely a notice of the bankruptcy

The letter says they have applied a restriction to the property. What is an 'OR'?

-Matt

Parva

matthamilton wrote: »

The letter says they have applied a restriction to the property. What is an 'OR'?

-Matt

Official Receiver, the person appointed to deal with the bancruptcy order.

matthamilton

OK, so the mystery is sovled. Apparently they sent an earlier enquiry letter a month before the one I saw. I didn't get this due to the flat being rented out and the tenant not passing the post on to me. The second enquiry sent the date of the restriction notice was apparently sent in error.

I've called up the courts and checked and it seems it is nothing more than mistaken identity, nothing nefarious going on it seems.

The Land Registry's modus operandi is if you have the same name and live in the same city as someone else and they go bankrupt, then the LR will put a restriction on *your* property unless you (receive in the first place and) respond to their enquiry letter. Otherwise they make the wild assumption that you must be the same person and put a restriction on your property. Amazingly they *only* have the first and last name and address to go on. Not even the DoB!

So I've sent the forms back to the LR and they should be removing the restriction shortly with a bit of luck.

So the moral of the story is... you know those people you paid your stamp duty to however many decades ago and have had no contact with since? Well don't forget to tell them that your correspondance address has changed... otherwise you just might find your property marked as associated with a bankruptcy order if someone else with the same name as you in the same city happens to go bankrupt!

-Matt

confuzzled2014

Hi Matthamilton,

We are in the process of buying a house that is having a restriction removed by an RX4, although the situation is slightly different to the one above - the seller went bankrupt so it has a debt agency on the register that need to be paid/sign for the restriction to be removed.

I wondered, could you let me know of any timescales with LR once they received the forms?

Many thanks