Buying off someone in debt

SMW87

We also need to complete ASAP for child's school, so wouldn't want to mess around and reduce offer.

mlz1413

The owner will only be able to complete on the sale if the money they are going to receive will clear the debts charged to the property, so that is the mortgage and any other loan with the house as security.

Most lenders will not secure on the house so its unlikely the debts will be so high that the sale will be held up, but as you know there are debts it is worth asking the direct question 'will be sale be able to complete'.

Regarding the other debts, if the old owner is paying off his various debts and advises all of them when he gets a new address then you should get very little callers or letters. IF he doesn't tell his debts where he has gone to then you will get everyone calling at your door.

I bought a house that had lots of unsecured debts on it and when I moved in I wrote RTS (return to sender) in marker pen on a bin bag sized amount of post, which made no difference at all. I then opened the post (and have still not gone to jail for this) and rang the various companies to say the house had been empty for 6 months before I moved in, I had no idea who had lived there and could only give the EA as a connection. This got about a 50% reduction.

The other debts took me nearly 5 years to stop as many of the credit companies sold the debt on (even though this is against their rules of conduct) but a letter quoting sections of the Credit Services Association regulations finally put a stop to it.

But none of this stopped me getting credit it was just really annoying!

mlz1413

phatbear wrote: »

My previous home suffered with this issue.

The previous owner had run a haulage company from the house and sold up and sodded off to spain and within a month of us moving in we were inundated with debt collectors and letters for the previous owners for personal and company debts.

However none of that ever effected us getting personal loans and credit cards etc

Was this possibly a bloke with the initials DJS?
If so I know he left a fair amount of misery behind him.

SMW87

These replies have been brilliant folks, thanks very much for all contributions. As FTB we are very nervous about it all, but you all help settle the nerves!