litigation help

Dav82w

Hi was hoping for some advice if possible,
Bought a house with a 'friend' in 2007 and 18 months ago this 'friend' got married and disappeared.Obviously I was left paying all bills and upkeep,and wasn't to happy.
So spoke to the mortgage company and applied for a change of parties which has been accepted and I was given the offer of loan on 1/5/2012 with a 16 week completion deadline.I did the change of parties because I am not prepared to pay the mortgage if someone else is benefiting from my hard work as he is still named on the mortgage,and will benefit if its sold.(if there's equity)
I don't know where my so called 'friend' now lives nor can I contact him,hence litigation.I'm due to speak to the litigation solicitor this week and would like some advice as to what will happen,basically a heads up if anyone else has had a similar experience.thanks.

BitterAndTwisted

You won't be able to arrange a mortgage in your sole name without the agreement of the co-owner and their signature on the documentation in order to settle the original mortgage.

Litigation is a million miles away and a very last resort. What are you expecting a court to do for you in any case?

Is this co-owner still making their share of the mortgage-payments?

Gentoo365

Surely the 'owners' are the people mentioned in the deeds (or registered on the land registry database).

The mortgage is just who owes the money.

If you are not careful you could end up with the other person owning the house, but you owing the mortgage.

I am surprised that the bank (or their solicitors) did not mention this.

Dav82w

No I'm paying all the mortgage payments and have been for 18 months.All that's holding the change of parties up is his signature,then its all done and dusted.But if I cant trace him or he refuse to sign what else can I do? We've been trying to contact him at his parents for the last 6 months but to no avail.I'm hoping a court can force the change of parties through or force sale to me as we are tenants in common! there must be something I can do.

Dav82w

Thanks for your reply Gentoo365 and good point.The mortgage company says the deeds must match the mortgage before it goes through so I have that covered.

BitterAndTwisted

Dav82w wrote: »

No I'm paying all the mortgage payments and have been for 18 months.All that's holding the change of parties up is his signature,then its all done and dusted.But if I cant trace him or he refuse to sign what else can I do?

Nothing until he comes out of the woodwork.

We've been trying to contact him at his parents for the last 6 months but to no avail.I'm hoping a court can force the change of parties through or force sale to me as we are tenants in common! there must be something I can do.

You could go to court to force a sale but it won't be cheap and you won't be able to achieve that without being able to serve the documents on the co-owner.

I'd be minded to pay a visit to the parents and have a chat with them about it. The co-owner could be encouraged to see their being released from their responsibilities as a positive thing, rather than a negative, most especially if there's any equity to be released.

Dav82w

Yes I would go to his parents but in the six months we've been trying to contact him the only feedback we got was a letter from 'his' solicitor to say that if we tried to contact him again then we would be taken to court for harassment.Perhaps should have mentioned that in original post.
So what we then did was to go to his solicitor as a point of reference,but now he's gone of the radar again and wont even respond to his own solicitor.
All he needs to do is sign,but I get the feeling he wants to stay on the mortgage and deeds and let me pay for it, so that in the future he can make a quick buck of the back of my hard work! think that's why my solicitors have referred it to litigation.Looks like im gonna be doin a lot of overtime at work!

BitterAndTwisted

Get the property valued by a surveyor right away if you haven't already And I don't mean a drive-by valuation done by the mortgage-lender. Then, if they do emerge from the woodwork you have a price to work from. I can see no reason why someone should profit, if profit there is, from not having made any mortgage-payments for 18 months.

Harassment? For writing a letter or letters? No, I don't think so. Never forget that any solicitor can be encouraged to write whatever letter they are asked to write by the person paying for it. That does not mean that they agree with or condone the contents. I would definitely write to the co-owner care of their parents, and continue to write or visit for as long as took to get a response.

The long and the short of it is that you are tied to this other person, whether they pay a penny towards the mortgage for the next twenty years or not and if they do not want to settle this matter nothing you do or say can make them if you cannot make contact. Mortgages-terms are often much longer than some marriages these days which is why it's very risky to buy a property with someone you have no formal and legal relationship with.

Unless you can make contact in some way you are likely to have them pop back once the mortgage is finally paid off and them start demanding half of the house's equity. In cash. By Tuesday week.

Do you know where this idiot works?

DVardysShadow

Dav82w wrote: »

Yes I would go to his parents but in the six months we've been trying to contact him the only feedback we got was a letter from 'his' solicitor to say that if we tried to contact him again then we would be taken to court for harassment.Perhaps should have mentioned that in original post.

Go for it! Contact his parents. Get the harassment claim to materialise.

And slap him with proceedings to force a sale.

On the whole, I would be thinking outside the box on this on to some extent. I would be trying to get some interaction - does not matter what, to get an address. So sue him at his parents address for his share of the mortgage. As contact to that address prompted a solicitor's letter, you have good reason to believe that he will be at that address.

Let his mortgage arrears reach £7500 [I think] and you can have him made bankrupt. The Official Receiver will then become Joint Owner of the house with you. As an asset, a 50% share of a house is virtually unsaleable. So you could buy the share off the OR quite reasonably.

The broader point to be made is that this scumbag is acting so extra ordinarily that most of the normal remedies are not open to you. So you have to start thinking of others. Quite reasonably, if he is not going to interact reasonably, some of the places you might need to go will naturally give him more grief than just dealing with you.

Letters pointing out where this could go might either bring him to his senses or get a harassment claim winging its way to you. Either would be a result. No reasonable judge is going to sustain a harassment claim for perfectly reasonable contact to deal with issues to let you get on with your life.

Do take your time to think around the possibilities to get him to blink. Think very carefully about what your objective is - ideally write it don, because this is one of those situations where it will be so easy to get lost in tactics, forget strategy and be oblivious to your original objectives.