Does she own it? What happens now?

Penelope11

I've just heard the following about an elderly relative and I have no idea where she now stands, or where her sons could now stand. Could anyone help?

She told me she owned a flat with a miniscule mortgage left on it in the 1980s. She was a leaseholder, the whole building had a freeholder.

A tree fell on the property causing significant damage to brickwork, windows etc of the whole building, including some direct hit to her flat.

The freeholder boarded up the whole building, scaffolding etc, but took a very long time to repair the windows and brickwork.

She lived behind the boarded up windows, with no light, for about a year.

Finally the windows were repaired but the freeholder ramped up her maintenance fees, doubling, tripling etc until she said it was like extortion.

She became extremely distressed by the situation, she tried to sell even at a knockdown price but there were no buyers. I think the building was still in quite a state even after the windows had been put in.

So one day, she walked away.  ?!!

What does this mean for her ownership of that flat?  

Annisele

Does she remember the address of the property? If so, and if it's in England or Wales, start by paying £3 to the Land Registry to find out who owns it now.

If there was a mortgage on the flat in the 1980s and she just stopped paying, then at some point I'd expect the lender to have taken possession and sold it to new owners. If the price the lender received was more than the outstanding mortgage, I'd expect the lender to have paid the difference to her (assuming the lender could find her). If it was less, then (again assuming the lender could find her) I'd expect the lender to have gone after her for the difference.

MWT

... another possibility is that the lease expired at some point in the last 30-40 years... a short remaining duration would have made it very hard to sell as well, which would be consistent with her story...

Starting with the Land registry makes sense though...

user1977

Or forfeiture of the lease might have happened.

But I would expect her to have been tracked down (unless she went into full witness protection mode) for the legal side of that - or indeed mortgage repossession.

Though if the property was too worthless to sell, even at the time, does anyone really think it's worth something now? (assuming that's what lies behind the question) Or is the concern about outstanding liabilities? In practice, nobody else will have been able to sell etc the property without somehow involving her or terminating her lease. Is she possibly confused about what happened 30+ years ago?

MWT

A simple check that the building still exists would be a good start...

Penelope11

I have the address and I have google street map viewed it - the building is still there, the one over the road looks like it was rebuilt as that was damaged too, but hers looks mostly original.  It's now a hotel.

Someone asked above what the concerns were - yes, there are some concern about liabilities ie. the huge and ever increasing maintenance fees to the freeholder which was the reason she walked away in a fright, liabilities to the bank over the tiny mortgage which was left on it.

Also nicer concerns of is there a pot of money sitting somewhere that's hers, which she could really do with now, and I say that because the whole block is now a hotel so this is not "is the flat still hers" question as it's not a flat any more.

Penelope11

PS. And no, she didn't go into witness protection or anything like that!  I have absolutely no idea why nobody tracked her down, when I asked her she said there were no letters or anything in all the years since.  We all thought she sold the flat decades ago, this story has come as a total surprise. It's all bizarre.

user1977

If it's now a hotel then almost certainly her lease ended somehow - as I said, nobody's going to have bought or mortgaged it with a "ghost" lease still registered.

Can any other family/friends verify how much of this sounds true? Anybody checked the Land Registry, or planning etc to see how long ago the conversion to a hotel happened?

Penelope11

Hmm.. I'll do some more digging among family members and see what they think. 

Would the Land Registry be the one-stop-shop to check the entire history of ownership of the place, end of leaseholds, sales/transfer of ownerships etc going right back to when she left it?

user1977

Penelope11 said:

Would the Land Registry be the one-stop-shop to check the entire history of ownership of the place, end of leaseholds, sales/transfer of ownerships etc going right back to when she left it?

Yes, though I don't think it's that easy to get details of historic transactions (as opposed to just looking at the current register).

But really, nobody's going to (or would be legally entitled to) suddenly turn up asking her for debts dating back 40 years for a lease which no longer exists. And she obviously can't sell her interest in a lease which no longer exists.