Compulsory Demolition Due to WW2 Bomb

stator

zagubov wrote: »

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.

But if you have a mortgage of £80,000 and the bank repossess and sell the land for £10,000, you still owe the bank £70,000 and they can continue to chas you for that amount for decades, plus add on fees.
The idea of surrendering a property is something that works in the USA but does not work here.

stephen6373

00ec25 wrote: »

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


How rude are you?????? (Thought I'd trump you on the overuse of question marks) Maybe you should've read the post properly before pitching in. I just learned of the situation so yes it 42 years ago it happened. Sorry you don't think it's relevant. Also, I did actually state they had a mortgage, so that would infer they were home owners. Where did I mention 'tenant' ?

stephen6373

Lorian it was in Glasgow

stephen6373

davidmcn wrote: »

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.

Hi David, we're not sure where the deeds have gone. All we know is that that the mortgage was paid in full. The believed as they didn't have insurance that they'd just have to pay the bank back

stephen6373

G_M wrote: »

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?

Hi G_M it was a flat as opposed to a house with land :-)

stephen6373

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

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.

thanks for this. I'm glad you got the picture I was trying to describe.

00ec25

stephen6373 wrote: »

How rude are you?????? (Thought I'd trump you on the overuse of question marks) Maybe you should've read the post properly before pitching in. I just learned of the situation so yes it 42 years ago it happened. Sorry you don't think it's relevant. Also, I did actually state they had a mortgage, so that would infer they were home owners. Where did I mention 'tenant' ?

FYI "home owners" can either be freeholders (who are either Joint Tenants or Tenants In Common) or leaseholders, but not apparently the latter in Scotland. I have little knowledge of Scotland hence my use of ?.

as for "rude", your only motive in this is to make money. I speak as a child of parents who fought in WW2, a time when attitudes were different, as can be seen if you use google, for example: "War Damage Commission"
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1035

I stand by what I said, if you are serious about this then pay for legal advice, instead of seeking (well intentioned) mutterings from internet amateurs.

stephen6373 wrote: »

Hi David, we're not sure where the deeds have gone. All we know is that that the mortgage was paid in full. The believed as they didn't have insurance that they'd just have to pay the bank back

at the point the mortgage was paid off the lender would have asked your parents if they wanted to have the paper deeds or not. if they chose not then the deeds would have been stored (in perpetuity) by the lender (or their solicitor) often at the expense of the borrower (ie your parents ). since your parents cannot remember what actually happened, and therefore have no documentary proof they ever owned the property, I suggest you start there, because without proof they owned it, your case is going no where.

Given the time lapse, it is inconceivable that your parents are recorded on the electronic register as the de facto owners of the property (you can check here: https://www.ros.gov.uk ) so the person who possesses the paper deeds, and moreover in whose name those deeds are entered, is the de facto owner, and thus the only person with even the beginnings of a hope of claiming compensation for war damage - assuming there is no statute of limitation applied to such legislation. I suggest you google that...

zagubov

stator wrote: »

But if you have a mortgage of £80,000 and the bank repossess and sell the land for £10,000, you still owe the bank £70,000 and they can continue to chas you for that amount for decades, plus add on fees.

Good luck with convincing someone in that situation how spending your life paying off a mortgage for a non-existent property is better than bankruptcy/ emigration/ starting again somewhere else.

badmemory

I think I would have been in a state of shock to discover 40 years on that my parents had been paying a mortgage for something that didn't exist. And paying at the over 15% interest rates that there were around that time.

Presumably they didn't finish paying until around 1990 or later so you may well be able to find information from the mortgage company. Just hope it wasn't Northern Rock as their record keeping wasn't that good even back then.

Pixie5740

stephen6373 wrote: »

Hi G_M it was a flat as opposed to a house with land :-)

The tenement didn't hover in mid air it will have sat upon some land. The owners of the tenement flats will have owned/still own that land.