Tracing a joint owner for deceased property

Wyverex13

My friend recently passed away and left me as her executor and beneficiary. In a complicated situation, the house is still in joint ownership with the friend she purchased it with 20 years ago. This friend moved to Australia after the first year and, because of delays with the mortgage company (Bank of Ireland) sending forms, she was unable to sign over the property to my friend. So they had s solicitor draw up a letter confirming she would give up all rights and my friend paid her £4k to buy her out.

Since then, my friend paid the mortgage until the day she died alone and was never able to get the BoI to change the land registry or take the other person off of the mortgage despite the solicitor's agreement.

20yrs later and now with my friend having passed away, I have fine back to the same solicitors to sort this out. So far, I've had to pay for a trace in the UK and they're saying I should also need to pay for a trace in Australia (where we know she emigrated to) even when the UK trace seems to have found her parents who didn't have contact information. This is despite multiple documents over the years I've found and provided to the solicitor where trying to have this person removed. And even after, i'll still need to pay for a barrister to make a judgement before knowing if we can get the property transferred.

My question is, even with every bit of evidence pointing to this person being uncontactable, having signed over her rights via s solicitor, etc, should we not have just been able to get this sorted and documents transferred to the estate beneficiary without all of this hassle? Especially as my friend was disabled, on benefits and yet only has a solvent estate because of the house she was the sole tenant and mortgage payer of for 20 years so without being able to resolve this, I'm currently having to pay off her debts myself as the property is the only asset. And it was the very solicitors I'm using who drafted this letter of rights transfer in the first place.

getmore4less

Do you have a receipt the £4k was paid? 
Does the land registry document as joint or tenants in common? 
Why are you paying debts when the estate is still in administration? 

Is there still a mortgage.?

What have land registry said they get to determine this.

Land_Registry

If a registered property (England or Wales) is jointly owned and one of the owners dies then the legal ownership passes to the surviving joint owner. 

As such you will need to trace the surviving owner as it is she who will have to deal with the legal ownership/registered title. 

Signing over her rights was not enough at the time. The legal ownership should have been transferred but there may have been reasons why that didn’t happen. And as mentioned any debts associated with the property/legal ownership should presumably be the absent owners as the property is not part of your friend’s estate

If you cannot trace her then a court can step in but in my experience that is only where they cannot be found and are presumed to be dead. 

getmore4less

The benefitial interest of the property will form part of the estate.

With the inability to sell often the interim solution is use the property. 

Is there is still an outstanding mortgage? 

Mojisola

Can you afford to lose the money you're paying out while attempting to sort this out?  If they were 'joint tenants' and the surviving owner can claim the house, there won't be any asset to liquidate and pay the estate's expenses.