Land registry restrictions - No one has any details of this due to age

Razormatt

Long time viewer but my first post so i hope someone can 

Myself and my partner are looking at remortgaging the house we live in but when a search was done a Land Registry Restriction was found dated 2007 which my partner thinks it could be to do with a debt involving her EX husband as he got them both into terrible debt but her parents helped her out after the divorce to cleared all the debt she had knowledge of.

The restriction is in her name but she only knows this as its on the restriction see attached, she is currently the sole owner of the house and the only one thats made mortgage payments after she got divorced back in 2010, the deeds are also only in her name and is nothing more to do with her ex husband after he signed the house over to her when her parents cleared all the debt and they got divorced

She has currently owned the house for 18 years from when it was built , the current mortgage isn't with Barclays and never has been 

The problem is we have contacted the county court they have no record of this as even though we have the case number and claim number they have said all records are destroyed after 9 years 3 years after a CCJ expires, we have contacted Barclays and been past from department to department and they cant give us any information either due to there systems not going back to 2007.

We have contacted the Land registry and they can only tell us what we already know they advised we send in a RX3 form to have it removed but will need to provide evidence to support the removal of the restriction which of course we dont have and cant even find any information about 

If there is an outstanding amount im more than happy to get it paid to get this removed so we can move on with the remortgage if we could find out more 

Can anyone point us in the right direction to deal with this please or how to get this removed 

Matt

Thrugelmir

Razormatt said:

we have contacted Barclays and been past from department to department and they cant give us any information either due to there systems not going back to 2007.

Have you asked if they'll agree to removing the restriction? 

Razormatt

Customer service have said they cant agree to something they know nothing about unless we can provide an account number which we cant as we dont know anything about this either 
they dont even know what department for me to talk to 

davidmcn

Razormatt said:

Customer service have said they cant agree to something they know nothing about unless we can provide an account number which we cant as we dont know anything about this either 
they dont even know what department for me to talk to 

I would suggest you start with "complaints"...you need to get it escalated to somebody who knows how to cope with old/archived accounts, the normal call centre people won't have a clue if it isn't a live account on their systems.

Mickey666

Razormatt said:

Can we break down exactly what that restriction actually means?  My shakey interpretation would be:

"No disposition [sale?] of the registered estate [the house?] is to be registered [ie change of ownership?] without a certificate signed by the applicant [would that be the buyer?] that written notice of the disposition [sale?] was given to Barclays Bank . . . etc.

Could this just mean that Barclays must simply be informed of any change of ownership of this property?  Obviously that would be a very easy thing to do in itself, but would beg the question of what would then happen?

Does this automatically mean that Barclays has some sort of financial charge on the property?  Or is there some other reason why they would need such a restriction?

Razormatt

This is what we dont know my better half doesn't have any account with Barclays she did have a current account about 20 years ago and she has a Barclays credit card but that's only recently in the last 2 years but nothing around this time 

so far we have spoken to
Barclays Customer support
Barclays mortgages (i have know idea why this department as there has never been a barclays morgtgage)
Barclays Recoveries
Barclays Collections 
Barclays debt management 
Barclays Fraud (as they are meant to be able to look back at older accounts)

This is just a small selection of the departments I guess next step will be Barclays complaints 

Also the Land registry who can only give us what we posted above and we got a reply from the county court 

"Good morning, because the case is so old, our system no longer recognises the claim number so we have no information now on this case and the physical file would have been destroyed many years ago as court files only have to kept for 3 years.

 

The Land Registry or solicitors acting at the time may have information on this.

 

CCJ’s only remain on the register for 6 years that is why Registry Trust will not have anything recorded under this claim number now."

Razormatt

Update 

Official complaint lodged but it’s been escalated to a senior complaints handler as they couldn’t find any information about the restriction and why it’s been applied and all old accounts are confirmed closed and no balance owed 

Land_Registry

Barclays are your way out of this in my experience. 

It’s disappointing that it wasn’t sorted when the divorce/property was finalised as that’s when she should have been made aware that a charging order against her had been protected on the register in this way. 

We can’t remove it unless it’s dismissed (court) or released (Barclays). It clearly existed and the details are there so hopefully Barclays can work their way through their records to help out

Mickey666

Land_Registry said:

Barclays are your way out of this in my experience. 

It’s disappointing that it wasn’t sorted when the divorce/property was finalised as that’s when she should have been made aware that a charging order against her had been protected on the register in this way. 

We can’t remove it unless it’s dismissed (court) or released (Barclays). It clearly existed and the details are there so hopefully Barclays can work their way through their records to help out

That's understandable. 
So, if Barclays won't release it because they don't want to release something they don't seem to have any information about - as the OP has stated (and which is sort of fair enough), then what's the court procedure? 
I guess this might be a way to force Barclays to produce the proof to justify this restriction (within X days) or be ordered to remove it.

Razormatt

Update 

Our complaint has been escalated to a senior complaint handler as they are unable  to find any information accept a old banking profile for my better half but all accounts associated with that profile are marked as closed and nothing owed so they can’t work out why the restriction was ever placed 

it may have been a debt that was paid many many years ago and Barclays just never removed the restriction?

I have said to them if they are unable to provide us with any details of why the  restriction is there or anything that is outstanding then can they provide us with documentation to state they are no longer interested in the property so we then have evidence to apply to the land registry using a RX3 form to have the restriction removed 

just have to play the waiting game now 

@Land_Registry you said 

“ We can’t remove it unless it’s dismissed (court) or released (Barclays)”

how can the court dismiss something they have no record of, the court came back to us already saying they had no records even with the claim number and they would have been removed from there systems after 6 years and distroyed after a further 3 years ? 

davidmcn

Razormatt said:

“ We can’t remove it unless it’s dismissed (court) or released (Barclays)”

how can the court dismiss something they have no record of, the court came back to us already saying they had no records even with the claim number and they would have been removed from there systems after 6 years and distroyed after a further 3 years ? 

Because the principle is that the bank shouldn't have the benefit of the restriction without being able to justify why it ought to still be there, otherwise it's just going to be a problem indefinitely.
(this isn't the court producing something from their own records, it's an application by the proprietor to get the restriction removed).