Charge on house we bought

chrissie83

Hi, just looking for some advice please.

We bought our house in 2006 & have just come to remortgage. The solicitor acting on behalf of the lender told me there is a charge on the property from the previous owner from 2005. I've spoken to the land registry & it's a loan the previous owner had against the house. I'm wondering how this has happened? The solicitor that we used to purchase the house aren't really interested but am I right in thinking this is something they have missed? Or is it our problem now?
Any help would be appreciated
Thank you

davidmcn

For your (purchasing) solicitors to sort out - hopefully the loan was redeemed and it's just getting the discharge which has been overlooked.

ReadingTim

I don't know how it works with selling, but when I paid my mortgage off early, my mortgage provider (Nationwide) were pretty slow at removing the charge over the place - they claim they'd do it in 5 days, but it took them about 6 weeks, and this was only after I'd called them up to ask what was going on - seems it just got overlooked...

Luckily, I'd registered for land registry alerts on my place a couple of years earlier so I could see when they did finally remove the charge, but if I hadn't have done so, I'd have had no idea of this oversight until I came to sell the place, and my buyers' solicitors would have unearthed the old charge....

You probably need to get in touch with your purchasing solicitors and get them to look into the matter, however, it might be worth also finding out who has the charge, what it's in respect of, and asking them to check their records to see if the loan the charge was secured against has been paid off.

Good luck!

chrissie83

Thank you for the replies.

I have just managed to find out it's a loan with a company that went into liquidation, the company then became welcome finance. She then borrowed more money in 2007. So the charge is still valid I have been told. I have asked them to remove it which they said they will ( I hope) I really want to know how the solicitor has missed it when purchasing the house & if it's a major problem as we are in the process of remortgaging.

davidmcn

It will need to be discharged before you can complete your remortgage - otherwise Welcome get first bite of the cherry if your house was repossessed.

lewishardwick

Did the company confirm what date the charge was applied? Is it possible the former owner secured a loan after they moved?

Do you still have the original paperwork from your solicitor regarding the sale? They should have downloaded a LR search for the freehold and this would have shown up any charges. If you have this, then I'd go back to the solicitor. Though I'm not 100% sure if they actually have to do anything or if you should have been aware.

silvercar

chrissie83 wrote: »

Thank you for the replies.

I have just managed to find out it's a loan with a company that went into liquidation, the company then became welcome finance. She then borrowed more money in 2007. So the charge is still valid I have been told. I have asked them to remove it which they said they will ( I hope) I really want to know how the solicitor has missed it when purchasing the house & if it's a major problem as we are in the process of remortgaging.

Very naughty of the sellers not to update welcome finance with their new address!

chrissie83

lewishardwick wrote: »

Did the company confirm what date the charge was applied? Is it possible the former owner secured a loan after they moved?

Do you still have the original paperwork from your solicitor regarding the sale? They should have downloaded a LR search for the freehold and this would have shown up any charges. If you have this, then I'd go back to the solicitor. Though I'm not 100% sure if they actually have to do anything or if you should have been aware.

I spoke the the previous owner. The charge is from July 2005 then she took further borrowing in 2007 ( we bought it in 2006) I presume against our house.

I don't have any paper work from the solicitors from the purchase, it went to the broker ( who has also gone into liquidation) but the solicitor said they would get the paperwork out of the archives & see what came up. The solicitor is saying it must be a mistake as we couldn't have got a mortgage but the land registry says it's no mistake. It's so confusing & frustrating! I only want to remortgage to get away from nram & save some money!

Freecall

chrissie83 wrote: »

The solicitor is saying it must be a mistake as we couldn't have got a mortgage....

But the solicitor was probably also acting for the mortgage company so if they made the mistake it would affect both you and the lender.

Hence the mortgage would have been granted.

marksoton

The veracity of your seller can't really be questioned now but that of your solicitor can and should be.

I wouldn't be happy.

davidmcn

Freecall wrote: »

But the solicitor was probably also acting for the mortgage company so if they made the mistake it would affect both you and the lender.

Hence the mortgage would have been granted.

Yes, the lender relies on the solicitor signing it off, which they would have done on the basis of an undertaking by the sellers' solicitors to discharge their charges. What often happens is that nobody follows up to make sure that the discharges are actually obtained from the lenders (many of which are rubbish at this sort of thing), and then it has to be sorted out years later the next time anybody checks the title.