Mark on house

mware1977

Can anyone please give some advise, my sister is trying to sell her property and her solicitor has informed her that there is a mark (debt) against the property. When she contacted the land registry they have informed her of the date which belongs to the previous owners and said it must have been missed by her solicitors when she first purchased it. Those solicitors no longer exist, she has the proof of when she purchased the house but the solicitor now says its not enough info and it's a dead-end.
Does anyone know how you can get an old debt removed when it doesn't belong to you as these solicitors are useless

user1977

Calling it a "mark" is a bit odd - presumably this is just a mortgage? Anyway...

Her solicitors' files won't simply have vanished in a puff of smoke, they'll have been taken over by another firm - so her current solicitors should be contacting them (and/or, whoever the solicitors were for the vendors to her, as they will have undertaken to discharge the mortgage).

bouicca21

She may find it useful to contact the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

sammyjammy

Its called a charge

canaldumidi

The 'mark' will be a 'Charge' which could be a mortgage or some other financial interest, or positive or detrimental covenants.

https://www.land-registry-documents.co.uk/information/charges-register/

When the original solicitors went out of business, their files would have been passed over to another firm.

https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/solicitor-closed-down/

However, even finding the file may not resolve the matter. Your sister's seller's solicitor at the time should have undertaken to your (now vanished) solicitor to remove the Charge, and should have done so. So it is actually your sister's seller's solicitor who was probably at fault and needs to resolve things.

And of course that can only happen if any debt or obligation the Charge relates to has actualy been paid off or discharged. If, for example, your seller's mortgage was not paid off in full (usually done on receipt by the seller of their sale money) then that bank/lender is not going to want to now remove the Charge without first receiving whatever amount is still owed........

If you download a copy of your sister's Land Registry Title (£3 here) and look at section 3 the 'Charges Register') you'll see the Charge and also the name of the bank (or other person/institution) that holds the Charge. It is them that need to apply to remove it.

mware1977

Shes been given the name of the company that hold the debt and again they no longer exist but the debt was taken over by another company who she has called and they have no record of a debt on her property so she is really confused. Is it possible the debt was cleared but the charge not removed. Her current solicitors are not being helpful and she has no idea what to do next

canaldumidi

mware1977 said:

Shes been given the name of the company that hold the debt and again they no longer exist but the debt was taken over by another company who she has called and they have no record of a debt on her property so she is really confused. Is it possible the debt was cleared but the charge not removed. Her current solicitors are not being helpful and she has no idea what to do next

We had a similar thread here a while back. OP trying to get a Charge removed where the bank had ben taken over and new bank had no record. I forget the outcome.......

Yes, perfectly possible the debt was cleared. Equally possible it wasn't! The difficulty is getting the current owner of the recorded debt to either identify yes/no to the debt, and/or to agree to remove the Charge.

I believe ultimately you can apply to a court to have the Charge removed, but slow.... costly........

edit: quick search found

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6153845/how-to-remove-a-charge-thats-over-10-years-old-on-my-property/p1