Transfer of mortage but not deed

Dorothy1929

My daughter and her ex have split up, he can not afford to buy her out nor she him. As a gesture of good will we discussed with him that if we came to an arrangement of a settlement figure and the lender agreed we would transfer onto the existing mortgage with her and the title of deed as there was only about £22,000 equity in the property and he would come out with less than he had actually paid in if attempting to sell. He did not have anyone to agree to go onto the mortgage with him. We agreed to give him his mortgage payments back and an additional lump sum which equated to £20,000 which in all fairness was what he had paid into the property over the last 3yrs with mortgage payments and buying home ware items. He agreed to this and we proceeded. He got a solicitor and we did also. The lender did an affordability test and agreed for me to go onto the existing mortgage with my daughter as long as we paid the figure of £20,000 and were not expecting the lender to increase the existing mortgage. After all this was done we thought the process would be straightforward. We were due to complete on 6th February 2018. He just needed to sign the completion form which would remove him of the title of deed . Money was drawn down ready for our solicitor to pay his. Then out of the blue we got a letter from his solicitor to say he wished to gain access to the property (bearing in mind he always had access and never been declined but has just chose to not live there or pay towards anything even half the mortgage since he left 15 months ago) to get items he regarded as his. The list was phenomenal and included items of nearly half of the house. We had thought the agreement of the £20,000 was including the contents but his solicitor argued it was to release the freehold only . It had started to look that something so straight forward was going to become messy. We didn't want confrontation so we agreed that items over time can be replaced and it just wasn't worth the additional solicitor costs going back and forth with letters most probably equating to more than the content worth. We signed to say we were happy for him to gain access but as this had come the day before completion would he sign the completion and then he could still gain access to the items. He agreed to this. So we went ahead, the bank completed the mortgage into my daughter and my name, the money was released to his solicitor and he was asked to sign the completion form for the title of deed . Then a massive bang, he has point blankly refused to sign the completion until he has his items. However he is saying he can not give a date as to when he is coming to collect them. In the meantime we have a mortgage in my daughter and my name in place, yet the title of deed in his name and my daughters. Where do we stand with this as I am absolutely panicking. His solicitor is saying he will keep the money in hold and not pay him until he collects his items and completes. However he has now said he is in no rush to collect them and will collect them when he has capacity to store them . Please help our solicitor even appeared lost . What I cant fathom out is how we are now on the mortgage but he still on the deeds. Does anyone know if he can be forced to complete? Can we withdraw, can we get our money back. This is really making me ill that someone that we have trusted so much can do this and is obviously getting his advice from somewhere. Many thanks and sorry for jumping on someone thread.

Fisa002

Dorothy I think you may get more replies to this in house buying and selling forum although it is to do with mortgages. I think that forum is slightly more popular and used more than this one x