House Restrictions preventing me purchasing a property

steven19881988

Good Morning All,

About 8 years ago my parents decided they no longer wanted to continue with the mortgage on the family home and moved to a rental property.
I didn't want to see the house be resold or repossessed so decided to take it over.
Foolishly I spent around 20k doing the house up and continued paying the mortgage that was in my parents name.

Once the house was in good condition I tried to buy it. I soon found our there were restrictions against the property.
After around 5 years of trying to buy the house and numerous battles between buying and selling solicitors. I am now at the point where I feel I will have to move out and buy somewhere else.
Leaving the house to be repossessed, which is incredibly sad!
This is because the debts are between 15 & 30 years old and I cannot locate the creditors. I have used solicitors and searched thorough debt agencies etc myself with no luck.
I have tried to get the restrictions cancelled using the RX3 form through the land registry but again this has not been successful.

I just feel I could be a millionaire but still cant buy this house as I cant locate the creditors.

I am currently paying interest only on my parents mortgage but this cannot go on indefinitely.

Has anyone else had to overcome this issue?
I saw the land registry have an account on this forum? Could you help me out of this mess please?

I am happy to set money aside for if ever these creditors wish paying back.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards
Steven

user1977

Who was the debtor? Was it your parents? If so, can't they help? If you've already had advice from solicitors, what was that?

rexmedorum

steven19881988 said:

...
I soon found our there were restrictions against the property.

What do you mean with restrictions? Do you mean a restrictive covenant restricting things you can do and keep on the property? or do you mean it's got other debts secured against it? If so wouldn't the sale of the house clear the debt? Of ocurse your parents will probably need to pay capital gains tax.

steven19881988

Hiya, thanks for the reply.

Yes the debtors are my parents.

They never kept letters/documents and just stuck there heads in the sand when they used to receive letters from debt agencies etc.
Now they don't receive letters anymore. Its like these debts have been forgotten about by everyone but still remain on the deeds.

When I tried to purchase the house one solicitor managed to contact one/two of the creditors but the other 4 or so never replied.
Based on this he was happy to continue with the purchase but my parents solicitors were not.

One of the restrictions is Natwest from a mortgage default in the 80's. But I've tried phoning Natwest and numerous debt agencies but no one has it on record now.

Id happily photo the deeds to show if you think it could help.

steven19881988

Another solicitor very recently told me he couldn't do anything other than what I had already done regarding finding the creditors and that he would be taking my money for achieving very little.

I asked if based on this the Land Registry would remove the restrictions. To be honest he was hardly complimentary of them.

All of the other solicitors I have spoken to just didn't appear to have the appetite for this work.

Best Regards

steven19881988

rexmedorum said:

steven19881988 said:

...
I soon found our there were restrictions against the property.

What do you mean with restrictions? Do you mean a restrictive covenant restricting things you can do and keep on the property? or do you mean it's got other debts secured against it? If so wouldn't the sale of the house clear the debt? Of ocurse your parents will probably need to pay capital gains tax.

Yes I mean debts secured against the house. I had this idea muted to be very recently.

I was originally trying to purchase the property for what's left on the mortgage which is 75k. The house is valued at about £120k

I could and possibly would buy it for extra to cover these debts.
But I don't know the values of the debt etc as it doesn't say it on the mortgage deeds.

Also I don't know who the creditors are as the debts have been passed from debt agency to debt agency etc, Also I believe some of the original debts are with companies who are no longer trading.

user1977

You need to get clarity about what debts are still due (with the help of your parents - the creditors shouldn't be talking to you). Land Registry aren't going to remove charges for debts which (as far as they can tell) probably still exist.

wilfred30

I'm finding this all a bit confusing!  I've never heard of a buyer having to track down creditors who have placed a Charge on a property.  Isn't that for the sellers' solicitor to sort out?

If you're already living in the house, why do you want to buy it anyway?  Can't you just carry on paying the interest on your parents' mortgage until such time as the mortgage capital has to be repaid and then let the Lender repossess it and buy somewhere else?

canaldumidi

steven19881988 said:

Yes the debtors are my parents.

They never kept letters/documents and just stuck there heads in the sand when they used to receive letters from debt agencies etc.
Now they don't receive letters anymore. Its like these debts have been forgotten about by everyone but still remain on the deeds.

When I tried to purchase the house one solicitor managed to contact one/two of the creditors but the other 4 or so never replied.
Based on this he was happy to continue with the purchase but my parents solicitors were not.

One of the restrictions is Natwest from a mortgage default in the 80's. But I've tried phoning Natwest and numerous debt agencies but no one has it on record now.

Id happily photo the deeds to show if you think it could help.

So your parents kept borrowing against the property but kept no record of what they were borrowing? And have no recollections? No wonder they wanted to go into rented and leave you to deal with this! Are you sure they don't have a drawer somewhere stuffed with paperwork they ignore........?!

No idea why you are ringing Natwest. Put it in writing, though unless you have POA for your parents, they will have to write the letter. It's their debt not yours.

Are the Charges on the Title in the name of debt agencies, not the original creditors? What are the dates when the Charges were transfered from the original creditors to the agencies?

What is the aprox market value of the property, and what is the outstanding mortgage you are paying the interest on? ie what is the equity in the property?

If you stopped paying the mortgage, yes, the lender (NatWest?) could repossess but then what? Either they'd sell, and your parents would get whatever equity is in the property(albeit reduced to cover lender's costs), or the lender would face the same problem as you and be unable to sell.............

theoretica

Have you seen this thread?  There is a land registry rep who gives advice on the way issues can be approached https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5685941/land-registry-questions/p1

pinkshoes

To get a charging order on a house multiple times, that would have been a lot of burying heads in the sand!

You will need a specialist solicitor who is willing to deal with this. Work out what the final sum will be (I believe interest will have to be added on to the debt?!?) and perhaps you can then leave this sum in some sort of trust for the creditor when they can be found?

Would the Court who agreed to the charging order not have records of the creditor? 

If you google the query, various solicitor names come up who seem to deal with this sort of thing. That might put you in the right direction of someone that could help.