Charge on the land registry

Sazle1969

We are in the process of selling my father's house. When checking the land registry a charge has shown up from a loan that was taken out in 1989. This loan was paid in full by my parents back then and forgotten about.
We were asked by the solicitors to provide proof of this but we have no paperwork due to the length of time that has passed. We were asked to have a statutory declaration drafted and sworn in which we did at a cost. This was then passed over to the Government Legal Department to trace if there was any debt outstanding. The guy from the GLD has said there is no trace of the company as they went into liquidation late 90s early 2000s. He said there is nothing on this company at all so they can't do anything for us.
We really don't know where to go with this now as land registry are saying they can't remove it without evidence. Does anyone have any idea of where we go with this now as we cannot sell the house with this on and my dad is paying bills on 2 properties at the moment. The buyer is also getting itchy feet now so we may even lose the sale and be back to square one.
Hope someone can help. Feeling desperate

G_M

As you seem to be using a solicitor for your conveyancing, why not ask them? They are qualified, and being paid. We are unqualified and not being paid........

davidmcn

Doesn't your solicitor know? I suspect it may take a court application.

da_rule

There are a couple of options:

1) Apply to the Land Registry to remove the charge on the basis that, under s.17 of the Limitation Act (and in accordance with the decision in Natwest v Ashe [2008] EWCA Civ 55) a lender would only have a power to obtain possession of a property if it commenced action within 12 years of a failure to pay the debt. In this case it appears they would be well out of time.

2) If the company has been dissolved, the assets (including the potential benefit of the charge) pass to the Crown via Bona Vacantia. Crown Legal Services could execute the relevant deed to release the charge.

This matter is somewhat complex. Hopefully the Land Registry rep will be able to offer some further guidance (or you could post this on the Land Registry help thread).

davidmcn

da_rule wrote: »

2) If the company has been dissolved, the assets (including the potential benefit of the charge) pass to the Crown via Bona Vacantia. Crown Legal Services could execute the relevant deed to release the charge.

This appears to be the avenue they've already explored. It only works if the company still had the relevant asset (i.e. the outstanding loan) at the time of the dissolution, but if there's no consideration now due then the Crown won't sign the deed.

steampowered

This sounds like the type of situation where you need a proper solicitor rather than a conveyancing factory type place.

You could try going to another solicitor if your current conveyancer or solicitor isn't able to help.

babyblade41

I'm certainly no expert but would it be possible to order parents bank statements if you know when it was taken out .
My thinking is that if you know roughly what it was for , how much and how long there would be some paper trail..

I might be totally off kilter just a thought whilst waiting to sort it

Sazle1969

Thanks for your replies. Ordering bank statements is not an option as it was paid by my great grandparents who have long since passed away.
We have gone to the land registry and they referred us to the Government Legal Department.
I will however post this onto the land registry thread and see what happens. The solicitors we are using were recommended by the estate agents. This is our first mistake

babyblade41

probably best to go to the Land registry designated community help page... https://support.landregistry.gov.uk/landregistry

They are extremely helpful and reply very quickly with really in-depth replies.

Sometimes with this post here it can get a bit lost