Selling late mother's house - Land Registry problem

Errata

No idea where the house is but for instance: A three bed house in West London could have been bought 40 years ago for c£4.5k; if the loan was 20% of that value then thow £1k at him and tell him to buqqer off. It seems a bit odd to me that a charge could say somthing like "£x pounds plus interest" without defining what the interest rate would be, whether it was simple or compound etc etc.
I hope the solicitor can sort it out for you.

Rikki

JacquiMarie wrote: »

Unfortunately we have absolutely no paperwork about the purchase of her house - all that is available is the Deeds which the solicitor has. There is literally nothing in the small amount of paperwork she left us to do with the house purchase. (Unlike me who has paperwork about each of our house purchases/sales lol.) All we came across was a paragraph in her divorce papers confirming that this sum had been paid off by 1972.

It obviously never occurred to her that anything like this would appear on the horizon as in her mind it was all done and dusted.

Could there be anything still at the solicitors who dealt with the divorce? It sounds like they saw evidence at the time. I know this is clutching at straws but maybe, they do keep their paperwork longer than banks.

I have a friend who went through a similar problem removing a charge of their deeds. Their frustration was they had the payment evidence it just took years to track the party involved down.

Off to read the other comments I missed.

puddy

Errata wrote: »

No idea where the house is but for instance: A three bed house in West London could have been bought 40 years ago for c£4.5k; if the loan was 20% of that value then thow £1k at him and tell him to buqqer off. It seems a bit odd to me that a charge could say somthing like "£x pounds plus interest" without defining what the interest rate would be, whether it was simple or compound etc etc.
I hope the solicitor can sort it out for you.

4.5k? really? im surprised at that, but then i have no idea

well if thats the sort of money we're talking about, just do it. a couple of solicitors letters will run up that sort of cost

mufi

That seems very low for a London house in 1971. Bought my first house in 1973 for £8,900 - 3 bed semi on new development in Norfolk, then an extremely cheap part of the country. We were priced out of London...

SuzieSue

My parents bought their 3 bed new build townhouse in a reasonable part of North London in 1973 for £18,000.

lincroft1710

The property was bought in 1968. In 1970 my grandmother's house was sold for about £3k (provinces), had we waited until 1971 we would have got at least 75% more and by 1972 double that. By 1976 that house would probably been worth nearly £10K.

puddy

ah, so i was nearly right the first time, it may be around the 20k mark (if based in london) which means that he may be owned 4k (without interest)

Errata

mufi wrote: »

That seems very low for a London house in 1971. Bought my first house in 1973 for £8,900 - 3 bed semi on new development in Norfolk, then an extremely cheap part of the country. We were priced out of London...

It may do, but it was perfectly possible to buy a house for that price at that time in Greater London. Such houses may have needed seeking out, updating, repairing or refurbishing, but they were there.

roger196

Just a few thoughts of lines to persue.

Ask for a copy of the loan agreement (signed by both parties) and his correspondence with the land registry to register the charge. If he is alleging that interest is due, ask him to authorise HMRC to release copies of his tax returns. This will show whether he has been declaring the interest. It would be most unusual for all the interest to be rolled up ie only to be repaid at the end of the loan, so where is the documentation to support his claim. If the interest is annual, what reasons can he give for not collecting this on a yearly basis. If he has been making multiple loans, he probably has an accountant who will hold the information. Does the level of loan making require a moneylenders licence?

Limitation Act 1980
Section 20 Time limit for actions to recover money secured by a mortgage or charge or to recover proceeds of the sale of land.
((5)Subject to subsections (6) and (7) below, no action to recover arrears of interest payable in respect of any sum of money secured by a mortgage or other charge or payable in respect of proceeds of the sale of land, or to recover damages in respect of such arrears shall be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the interest became due..

jackyann

No more help, but to comment on the house prices: I was living in west London 1969-73 and the rate that house prices shot up in that area was unbelievable. A friend who bought a 3 bed terrace in Chiswick for £3k in 1968 sold it in 1973 for over £10k. And am interested by roger's comment: maybe, like Al Capone, you can get him on the taxes!
However, it may come down to how much money, tile & energy you are willing to expend.