Compulsory Demolition Due to WW2 Bomb

stephen6373

I recently learned that our parents had to leave their home - which they were paying a mortgage on - as the tenement block they were living in had to be condemned due to WW2 bomb exploding nearby, causing seemingly irreparable damage. I suppose I should add that this happened back in 1975. They were offered a council house to rent in another area, which they took.

My question is, they didn't receive any compensation at the time and continued to pay the mortgage until the end (whilst paying rent for the council house). As I understand it, they didn't have buildings insurance either. The site in which the building stood has never been redeveloped, but I wonder if there could be a claim against some of the land, or should there have been compensation paid?

Thanks

davidmcn

What happened to their title to the land? Either they sold it (or it was compulsorily purchased), or they still own their share of the tenement plot.

Or I suppose it could have been repossessed by the lender and sold on. But they'd have known about it at the time.

00ec25

are you really asking about something that happened 42 years ago???? presumably your interest is because you sniff compensation??

i assume we are talking Scotland since you mention tenement, if they owned the property (you say they were buying via mortgage so they must have been owners, not tenants) did they own as freeholders or as leaseholds? If freeholders then they owned the land and it will be worth "something" even if it has never been developed - presumably because they still own it and thus no one has chanced trying to take it out from under them.

if you are serious about this then invest money in paid for proper legal advice because "you" (ie your parents) will need it

you might also like to read this and note the difference between the attitude taken by our forebears and the compo culture demanded by the current gimme gimme generation
http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/History/Question874532.html

moneyistooshorttomention

It hadnt occurred to me anyone could be in this position (ie the parents' position).

OP says they've only just found out about this - and I imagine they are shocked. I would be if I found out that someone had had to pay both mortgage on one home and rent on another and had only had the use of one of those homes and had lost being a home-owner.

I would imagine that's all there is to it. OP is shocked at their parents having been put in this position and wondering if they can get back any of the money that had to be thrown away on rent over the years because of this unfortunate occurrence - for the parents' sake. I wouldnt be very happy if someone was put in this position of losing money and being a "home-owner" because of no choice or fault of their own and thought that there must be some insurance company somewhere that should have paid to cover them for this.

I've got a very vague idea in my mind - from my mother being bombed out as a child in World War 2 - that there was some sort of Government compensation/the Govt bought their wrecked homes. I couldnt swear to it though - and guess other people in that sort of age group would remember if that was the case.

Then would follow just how long after that War that any scheme like that applied for or whether it got terminated a few years after the War and couldnt be claimed on all these years later.

davidmcn

00ec25 wrote: »

did they own as freeholders or as leaseholds?

We don't do leasehold in Scotland.

silvercar

If this had occurred in 2017, either the building insurance would have paid out for the block and that money used to pay off the mortgage or the owner would have let the mortgage lender repossess whatever is left.

G_M

Who would offer compensation?
* the council? They were not responsible, though they did make alternative housing vailable.
* the pilot who dropped the bomb? Even if identifiable, I guess it's "Just doing my job guv".
* the authorities who instructed the pilot to drop the bomb? I suppose your parents could put in a claim to the German government.....

Unfortunately, this is what insurance is for (though I think my insurance excludes acts of war).

But if they owned the property and the land it stood on (I'm not familir with Scottish land law - so much more logical having freeehold/leasehold arrangements), and have now paid off the mortgage, then presumbly they still own the land.

Do they still have deeds or other documention?

moneyistooshorttomention

Found it.

I googled "Government compensation for houses destroyed in World War 2" and it came up with a Daily Telegraph article from 2008

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3042229/Council-forced-to-pay-1.6m-for-scrap-of-land-by-absurd-WWII-law.html

I knew I'd remembered something about my mother complaining that there were people that deliberately bought wrecked houses from people that got bombed out in that War for peanuts - as they anticipated there would be a scheme like this after the War. War ended. Scheme like it came up. These people that had profited at the expense of the bombed-out owners that hadnt realised this would happen went on to make quite a bit of money out of it - as they now owned those wrecked houses and the land they stood on. I think that was the gist of what she said to me - though I do "tune out" whenever the subject of the War comes up.

With that article being 2008 - I dont know if this would still apply now or no and whether it would be deemed to apply to their bombed-out (after the event) flat.

G_M

I wonder where the money went? In 2014 greenweb had capital of £1.00........

Despite finding numerous references to Greenweb Ltd v Wandsworth I can find none indicating it went beyond the Court of Appeal which reaffirmed the £1.6m payment.

zagubov

I believe in paying my debts, but I think if I was asked to leave a property and continue paying a mortgage on it without the right to return to it, I'd lose my credit rating by being very forgetful about paying said mortgage, PDQ.

Lorian

Where was the tenement?