What happens to a property under a Charging Order when the homeowner dies?

FFS2020

My mother died recently and my sister and I are trying to make sense of her estate.  She was an extremely abusive woman and we were estranged from her for the most part.  She owned a property that’s been valued at around £500k.  A Land Registry search shows she owned the property in her sole name but that in 2007 her mortgage company put a Charging Order on the property.  There is no mention of that Charging Order having ever been paid off/satisfied.  I believe if the Charging Order debt had been paid off that would be mention in the Land Registry listing, or that the mention of a Charging Order would have been removed from the records altogether if it was satisfied?

If a person dies with an outstanding Charging Order on their property, what happens?  Who owns the property?  Who pays the rest of the debt?

user1977

Charging orders have got nothing to do with property ownership, it's just a form of secured debt. The executors are responsible for paying all outstanding debts from the estate (assuming the estate is big enough to cover them all). The fact the charging order is still registered doesn't necessarily mean there's anything still outstanding, in the same way that the presence of a "normal" mortgage charge doesn't indicate how much, if anything, is still to be paid - you'd need to find that out by other methods.

macman

The estate will pay the debt out of the proceeds of the sale. The property cannot be transferred into the name of the new owner until the order has been discharged, so the conveyancer must do this at the time of sale.
If the property has specifically been bequeathed to your or your sister then the same applies.

getmore4less

It is part of estate administration to deal with any secured debts.

The first thing that needs doing as part of the enquires stage is find what the charge was for and what debt is outstanding.

Thrugelmir

Who are the executors of your late mothers estate? 

FFS2020

getmore4less said:

It is part of estate administration to deal with any secured debts.

The first thing that needs doing as part of the enquires stage is find what the charge was for and what debt is outstanding.

I think I may have got things wrong actually.  It's her mortgage company she has delinquent debt with.  Her mortgage should have been completely paid off around 2003, but instead she got into tens of thousands of debt on designer clothes and handbags and didn't pay her mortgage.  At that point she almost lost her home but apparently remortgaged it.   The Title says that the owner "for the time being" of the property is this remortgage please, who she'd also defaulted on.  

Scotbot

FFS2020 said:

getmore4less said:

It is part of estate administration to deal with any secured debts.

The first thing that needs doing as part of the enquires stage is find what the charge was for and what debt is outstanding.

I think I may have got things wrong actually.  It's her mortgage company she has delinquent debt with.  Her mortgage should have been completely paid off around 2003, but instead she got into tens of thousands of debt on designer clothes and handbags and didn't pay her mortgage.  At that point she almost lost her home but apparently remortgaged it.   The Title says that the owner "for the time being" of the property is this remortgage please, who she'd also defaulted on.  

It doesn't alter anything. If there is an outstanding debt it has to be paid by the executor before any heirs receive any money. The house will have to be sold and the money from the sale used to pay off any debts. People die but debts don't die with them, they are not written off when someone dies

GDB2222

Either show this to a solicitor, or copy out exactly what is on the Land Register, with names and addresses omitted.

sheramber

So, in effect, there is an outstanding mortgage on the property.
The executor needs to notify the mortgage company that she had died and find out how much needs to be repaid. That amount is a debt on the estate to be paid out of  the  estate funds.