Charge to the house. Canada Square Operations

buyinghouse

Good afternoon, 

We are currently caught in a hold up in a problem in our property chain, apart from this one issue everyone is ready to exchange contracts. 

The house we are purchasing has a charge on it from a historic ccj issued by Egg banking plc in 2005, Egg went out of business and the accounts are now supposedly being managed by Canada Square Operations. The only address given is a PO Box, the seller's solicitor has had no joy from writing to this address. I found an email address last week and have received a reply to my information request which basically told me that as I am not the account holder or their representative I cannot access information (fair enough). The solicitor and seller have emailed the very same email address and not received a response. 

The lady who had the ccj has sadly passed away. The original bank is now longer active, the current company are not responding to letters or emails. 

Apparently the only way to remove a charge is through the original issuer, has anyone else been in a similar situation? I would be interested in ideas of how we can navigate our way around this issue. Is there an alternative way to remove a charge? 

user1977

It's not very clear from your post - are you buying directly from the executors of the deceased debtor? If so, it's up to them to take all reasonable steps to ensure they're clearing the debts of the deceased - so are they saying there's definitely nothing still due to this creditor? Or don't they know yet?

Ultimately a court can remove the charge, but in practice somebody at the bank will eventually swing into action, they may just need some encouragement to do so e.g. via making a complaint.

buyinghouse

Thank you for your response. 

We are buying from the husband, his late wife received the charge. It doesn't sound like he knows if there is still an outstanding balance, the family do not have any of the paperwork associated with this debt or the charge. I don't think there is an issue with them clearing any potential balance, the issue seems to be that there is no customer service or assistance from Canada Square Operations. 

Ultimately, I am just trying to collect as much information as possible as I am aware that the seller's solicitor only have so much time to dedicate to this sale. With mortgage offer time limits in consideration, we need to get to the bottom of this ASAP. 

user1977

There's nothing else you can do to assist, it's up to the seller and his solicitors to sort it out. Ideally they would have checked out this sort of thing before even marketing the property, but you are where you are.

In theory you can get indemnity insurance against historic charges, but that's really going to be where e.g. nobody can trace the creditor, not where there's a bank merely taking longer than you'd like to reply to correspondence.

buyinghouse

user1977 said:

There's nothing else you can do to assist, it's up to the seller and his solicitors to sort it out. Ideally they would have checked out this sort of thing before even marketing the property, but you are where you are.

In theory you can get indemnity insurance against historic charges, but that's really going to be where e.g. nobody can trace the creditor, not where there's a bank merely taking longer than you'd like to reply to correspondence.

Thank you, yes that's what we thought. In an ideal world we would have found out about this a long time ago prior to already having spent thousands of pounds and being 5 months in. I appreciate your help, thanks again. 

Brie

is there any type of indemnity/insurance that the seller could provide to cover this?  I'm assuming this happens frequently enough with defunct organisations so someone must have thought up a solution when progress can't be made.

user1977

Brie said:

is there any type of indemnity/insurance that the seller could provide to cover this?  I'm assuming this happens frequently enough with defunct organisations so someone must have thought up a solution when progress can't be made.

Like I said above, possibly where creditors are actually defunct, but not in this example where (as far as anybody can tell) this may well be a "live", and significant, debt.

SonnyLumiere

Don't know if these help but quick google turns up:
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02999842
which gives full address and (under "People" tab) names of executives

Also, following gives direct email and phone of CSO Chief Exec: 
https://www.!!!!!!/s.php?id=ceo-753183

SonnyLumiere

Sorry, last link should be:
www . ceoemail . com for some reason MSE inserted excl marks!

buyinghouse

SonnyLumier - Thank you, yes I found these last week. There is limited information available, no telephone number, only a PO Box address and the solicitor isn't getting responses from the email address I found online. (I received a reply saying because I am not the account holder or their representative they cannot discuss the account (fair enough) so we know the email address is being monitored however I am the only person to have received a response. 

buyinghouse

user1977 said:

Brie said:

is there any type of indemnity/insurance that the seller could provide to cover this?  I'm assuming this happens frequently enough with defunct organisations so someone must have thought up a solution when progress can't be made.

Like I said above, possibly where creditors are actually defunct, but not in this example where (as far as anybody can tell) this may well be a "live", and significant, debt.

Brie said:

is there any type of indemnity/insurance that the seller could provide to cover this?  I'm assuming this happens frequently enough with defunct organisations so someone must have thought up a solution when progress can't be made.

Yes, for all we know there could be nothing outstanding but equally £50,000, nobody knows.