My solicitor has not repaid charges on my old house

emilyj

I have just found out that my solicitor did not actually repay charges on my old house (for debts of mine secured on the house) before passing the residue of the money to me (some three years ago).

Does this mean the new owner is responsible for the debts? Who actually owns the house now? Do I still have to settle the debts?

LandyAndy

Hmmm. Time for someone to dust off their PI policy I think. But I don't know so I wait for an expert to tell us. Is Richard Webster out their at the moment - he seems to have these sorts of answers.

Me_Myself_2

No. You still owe the money. You may be able to sue the solicitor (if he was negligent). Any court would also take into account whether it should have been obvious to you that you owed more money.

Good luck.

MM

Rikki

Richard Webster He is off line at present but the link will enable you to message him.

LandyAndy

What about he buyers of your house? They have a property which has legal charges over it. I think their solicitors may be in some difficulty for not ensuring the charges were released when they bought.

silvercar

You still have to pay the charges.

The new owner still owns the house.

The new owner's solicitor was probably remiss in not ensuring that the new owner's title was registered. Your solicitor was probably less than efficient in clearing all charges on the property.

emilyj

Thanks!

I've been trying to get a proper statement from the solicitor and only just succeeded after threatening Law Society intervention. The residue was split between myself and my ex-wife and she will not tell me what she got. I never imagined the charges would not have been repaid -I thought they had to paid before anyone else.

I'll message Richard.

silvercar

I thought they had to paid before anyone else.

They do!

It may be that the monies were paid but the legal charges not removed from the register. Make sure these charges are not being paid twice!

emilyj

silvercar wrote: »

They do!

It may be that the monies were paid but the legal charges not removed from the register. Make sure these charges are not being paid twice!

That is what I thought had happened -I thought it was just that the charges had not been removed, an admin problem -not that the money had not been paid over.

Richard_Webster

First how do you know the debts were not paid off? Is it just the solicitor's financial statement or have you heard from the creditors asking for money?

Next I would go to the Land Registry website and get a copy of the registry entries for the property. This will show whether the buyer has yet been registered as owner. It will also show whether the charges are still registered there, although this is very unlikely indeed. If the new owner has been registered and there is no sign of the charges then this suggests that possibly they were not registered against the property in the first place and they were obligations which were purely personal. If you told your solicitors to clear them before dividing the money and there is a clear instruction to that effect they should have given effect to it.

If the loans/debts were secured on the proeprty then the buyer's solicitors should have been screaming at your solicitors to discharge them as they should have given an undertaking about this on completion. It was up to the buyer' solicitors to check what was secured on the property and make sure they got an undertaking to discharge each such charge from your solicitors. This sounds unlikely after 3 years because this would be holding up the buyer's title being registered in their names.

If you knew that you had these loans/debts why did you not question the fact that they were not included on the solicitor's statement at an earlier stage? Didn't you get a statement at all after completion?

You could still be liable for the debts but to the extent that you have altered your position to your detriment on the assumption that the debts had been paid you might have a claim against your solicitor.

I would be interested to know what the Land Registry entries show.

emilyj

Thank you.

I will get the Land Registry report and see what it says.

The reason I know the money was not repaid is that one of the creditors is now chasing me, and others (not all) show up on my current credit report as not paid. One very small one has been abandoned by the creditor.

Not all the debts were secured on the house, but the divorce agreement was that all debts should be paid before the residue was divided up.

I asked repeatedly for a statement, but never got it until this week. The residue was not paid until 9 months after the sale, after repeated chasing of the solicitor.