Interested in a unoccupied house

JGB1955

Rosa_Damascena said:

Slight word of caution if you do get lucky with this property, OP: be aware of the credit score attached to the house itself (may be relevant if there were debts).

Houses don't have credit scores. Neither do they have credit histories.

UnderOffer

Rosa_Damascena said:

Slight word of caution if you do get lucky with this property, OP: be aware of the credit score attached to the house itself (may be relevant if there were debts).

That’s not true, we moved into a house where the previous owners were full of debt, didn’t have any affect on us, we were able to obtain credit with no queries and lived happily there for 10 years. 

newsgroupmonkey_

Rosa_Damascena said:

Slight word of caution if you do get lucky with this property, OP: be aware of the credit score attached to the house itself (may be relevant if there were debts).

This is one of the weirdest comments I've seen on here.

People buy repossessed houses all the time without any credit issues.

As has been pointed out, credit scoring is done on individuals, not property.

Section62

MalMonroe said:

Councils have records of who owns what, normally and can start investigations to find out what the situation is.

Councils don't keep records of who owns what.

They keep records of what they own, but like the rest of us will make enquiries to find out who owns other people's land if they need to know for some reason.

MalMonroe said:

You could also tell the council that you would be very interested in buying it if the owner could be found.

There's not much point in this, and it could be counterproductive.

The council won't (/shouldn't) trace the owner of land in order to assist a private individual in acquiring it.  What they will potentially do is to trace the owner to "encourage" them to return the property to use as a dwelling, or in some cases to aquire the property to add it to social housing stock.

Contacting the council would be counterproductive to the OP as this would potentially create a rival buyer - one with deeper pockets and with tools (e.g. CPO) that the OP doesn't have at their disposal.  Avoiding alerting the council the to situation with this property is what the OP should be seeking to achieve, and discreetly make enquiries via LR, as already suggested.

thegreenone

I second canaldumidi's suggestion with writing to Mr X/The Owner at the address via Royal Mail and see if you get a response.  A copy through the door too.

Council Tax would still have to be paid but doubt the council would part with any info.  Or perhaps they are trying to find him too. Or perhaps he is in prison because he hasn't paid his CT!

Or write to BoS enclosing a letter to the owner asking BoS to forward it if they have another address and an SAE to send it back to you if they don't.  

user1977

mistryjayesh said:

No one comes to the house to keep an eye on it 

How certain is everyone about this? It's possible that there are brief and infrequent visits being carried out.

Swipe

It was common to leave £1 on the mortgage so the deeds can be kept safely with the bank. This was the case with my late parents house for 40 odd years.