Seller's second last name missing from the Title

ce5656

We are buying a property from an Italian couple and three months into the conveyancing process, I noticed myself that one of the sellers' second last name is missing from the Title! So if her name is "A B de C D" according to their solicitor, the Title only shows "A B de C". The other seller's name is exactly the same. I checked her signature on the lease extension file from a few years ago and she clearly signed without her second last name, but in the F&F she signed recently, she signed with her second last name.

This is odd as from what I heard, Italian women don't change their surname after getting married (none of her names matches the other seller who I assume is her husband). Also if one of the last names is to be dropped, surely she would keep the very last surname?

I pointed this out to my solicitor (I still can't believe it's down to me to do this kind of check) and the sellers' solicitor has since been contacted. Their reply is that the seller doesn't hold a deed poll and will provide a statutory declaration instead.

Does this sound dodgy? This is an empty property, no mortgage, overseas owners...I'm very worried that "A B de C D" is not the same person as "A B de C" and as much as I understand that it's down to the sellers' solicitor to verify their identity, I really have very little confidence in their solicitor! Their solicitor misspelt the property address in the Contract and also put "A B de C D" as "AB de C D" when those first names should clearly be two separate words.

Any comment is much appreciated!

p00hsticks

We sold (competed on) a property just before Christmas that we'd been living in for 30-odd years. We got an e-mail from our solicitor last week - it had just been spotted (I imagine by the buyers solicitor when they were filling in the application to get the Land Registry updated) that when we originally bought the property in 1991 my partners surname had been spelt wrong (missing a final 'S'), which we never realised at the time.

We had noticed that his name was spelt wrong in some of the documents during the selling process and had corrected our solicitor, but hadn't realised that potentially this stemmed from the original title being (slightly) incorrect. We were asked to print off a 'statement of truth' for my OH to sign to confirm that both 'with an S' and 'without an S' were the same person, and the one that has bought and sold the house, and that appears to have fixed things.

user1977

ce5656 said:

Does this sound dodgy? This is an empty property, no mortgage, overseas owners...I'm very worried that "A B de C D" is not the same person as "A B de C" and as much as I understand that it's down to the sellers' solicitor to verify their identity, I really have very little confidence in their solicitor! Their solicitor misspelt the property address in the Contract and also put "A B de C D" as "AB de C D" when those first names should clearly be two separate words.

Surely that just indicates their solicitor is a bit sloppy - why does it make you worried that it's not actually the owner they're acting for?

ce5656

user1977 said:

ce5656 said:

Does this sound dodgy? This is an empty property, no mortgage, overseas owners...I'm very worried that "A B de C D" is not the same person as "A B de C" and as much as I understand that it's down to the sellers' solicitor to verify their identity, I really have very little confidence in their solicitor! Their solicitor misspelt the property address in the Contract and also put "A B de C D" as "AB de C D" when those first names should clearly be two separate words.

Surely that just indicates their solicitor is a bit sloppy - why does it make you worried that it's not actually the owner they're acting for?

I can't think of a legit reason why anyone would knowingly drop part of their surname in a property related document. If it's a missing middle name or a typo the I'd understand. The fact that she doesn't hold a deed poll suggests that she hasn't officially changed her name. If she used the "A B de C" a few years ago to extend the lease, surely for consistency purpose and also to make her life easier, she'd use the same ID for this sale? Yet clearly her current ID contains that extra last name. Something doesn't add up here.

Also this property being unoccupied, unmortgaged with owners living overseas all makes it particularly vulnerable for property fraud. 

user1977

ce5656 said:

user1977 said:

ce5656 said:

Does this sound dodgy? This is an empty property, no mortgage, overseas owners...I'm very worried that "A B de C D" is not the same person as "A B de C" and as much as I understand that it's down to the sellers' solicitor to verify their identity, I really have very little confidence in their solicitor! Their solicitor misspelt the property address in the Contract and also put "A B de C D" as "AB de C D" when those first names should clearly be two separate words.

Surely that just indicates their solicitor is a bit sloppy - why does it make you worried that it's not actually the owner they're acting for?

The fact that she doesn't hold a deed poll suggests that she hasn't officially changed her name. 

Do Italians need to officially do anything to change their name? There's no need to do anything official in the UK, or to use just one "legal name", it's just that deed polls can smooth the process a bit - perfectly commonplace for people to use more than one name without anything fraudulent going on.