Seller not discharged mortgage security

siowenson

Hi All,


I'm currently trying to remortgage my house which I bought 4 years ago; however, it turns out that the seller never discharged their standard security when they sold the house.
The remortgage process started on the 8th of Feb. Initially, I was dealing with my current solicitor but soon found out that they were only at the start of the chain of people involved in this. They waited for 2 weeks for my other solicitor, Mcvey & Murricane, which I used for the purchase 4 years ago, to get back to them before I took matters into my own hands by calling them myself. M&M fobbed me off for a couple of weeks(the deeds department doesn't have a phone number and they don't reply quickly to emails) until the case was moved to their resolutions department and I was able to deal with
an actual person over the phone. After me phoning every day last week the senior solicitor of M&M finally called the sellers solicitors on the Thursday(the 7th) and he's now apparently waiting on word back.
I called the Scottish Land registry yesterday in the hope that they would have had some sort of contact but no joy.


Has anyone on here had to go through this before?

I'm surprised this wasn't flagged up 4 years ago when I bought the house. Who is responsible for this mess? Should M&M have done any checks when I made the purchase?

davidmcn

siowenson wrote: »

Should M&M have done any checks when I made the purchase?

It's standard for the discharge to be registered after settlement, they should have followed through to ensure the sellers' solicitors provided the discharge. They would have had an undertaking from the sellers' solicitors to provide the discharge.

Lenders are often a bit rubbish at signing the discharge deeds, but as long as their mortgage was actually redeemed (which, very rarely, it isn't!) then it will get sorted.

siowenson

Thanks for the reply.
Do you think it may be the previous owners mortgage company who will drag this out then? What sort of time scale should I expect? Days, weeks, months or even years??!!

davidmcn

No particular reason why it ought to be dragged out. Weeks, days maybe. It's likely that the seller's solicitors never even sent a discharge to the lender to be signed, rather than the lender being at fault.

siowenson

Well that's a bit of a relief.
Does that mean that the seller doesn't have to do anything then? She was an old lady who might not even be alive.

davidmcn

siowenson wrote: »

Well that's a bit of a relief.
Does that mean that the seller doesn't have to do anything then? She was an old lady who might not even be alive.

Well, let's hope nobody has to dig her up...seriously, no, the solicitors and the lenders will sort it out.

siowenson

This delay has cost me an extra £300 in interest last month because my mortgage has reverted to the SVR and it looks like ill have to pay another 300 extra this month.

Do you think I might have grounds to make a claim against whoever is responsible for not doing their job properly? Is it worth contacting the Financial Obusman?

davidmcn

siowenson wrote: »

This delay has cost me an extra £300 in interest last month because my mortgage has reverted to the SVR and it looks like ill have to pay another 300 extra this month.

Do you think I might have grounds to make a claim against whoever is responsible for not doing their job properly?

No, I doubt you'll have much of a chance of claiming consequential losses.

siowenson

So my mortgage was completed on the 8th of April, which meant it took 8 weeks to get the standard security issue sorted. I'm currently claiming compensation from the solicitor I used for the original purchase so ill post again whether or not I'm awarded anything.

Thrugelmir

siowenson wrote: »

So my mortgage was completed on the 8th of April, which meant it took 8 weeks to get the standard security issue sorted. I'm currently claiming compensation from the solicitor I used for the original purchase so ill post again whether or not I'm awarded anything.

Be reimbursed for the excess interest you incurred seems reasonable. As for compensation won't amount to much.

siowenson

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Be reimbursed for the excess interest you incurred seems reasonable. As for compensation won't amount to much.

I've asked for the extra interest back and part of the fee I paid them four years ago for their service. I think that's fair considering the amount of stress we've been through and the amount of time I spent chasing them up with phone calls.