To protect a pending: Charge

georgia1993

I bought my ex boyfriend out of our house and  completed on 2nd August. I signed up to property alerts from the HM Land Register and received the below. 

My ex boyfriend has debt and I think a solicitor is trying to register a charging order on the 6th August ? . My solicitor done a check on 30 July and no pending charges showed up.

How can someone try to register a charge after completion and when the previous co owner has received their equity and no longer has any interest to the property.

silvercar

 I would hope that “try” is the operative word.

Your completion on 2/8 eventually gets registered, the charging order should then fail. I don’t know whether you need to object on the grounds he no longer has an interest in the property. Hopefully @Land_Registry can advise.

ss2020jd

I had a similar email just before I completed on my mum’s house and it was the buyer’s building society protecting their charge for the mortgage.

Do you have a mortgage on the property? It could be to do with them registering that. Do you recognise any of the solicitor’s Co. names?

Nat West does have other banking names in the group that perhaps the mortgage is with if you don’t recognise it. I would check with your solicitor on Monday. And/or contact the solicitor(s) named on the alert if you don’t recognise the names. 

As @silvercar says, hopefully Land Registry can advise and put your mind at rest. 

Hoenir

When was the court  hearing? 

theartfullodger

I had HMRC try to register a charge for a barrister (!) who'd gone bankrupt with the EXACT same spelling as my name against a BTL of mine.  Eventually sorted.

propertyrental

As above but I would

* contact LR and ask for more info

* contact O'Neil Patient solicitors and ask for an explanation.

Land_Registry

You've posted on LR Qs thread as well and here's my response
The 'alert' explains what type of application this is - an official search. So that's not a charging order/charge but an official search to protect a future application to register a legal charge an din this case in favour of Nat West.
So the first thing to ask yourself is do you have any connection to Nat West currently, for example in buying out your ex are you perhaps remortgaging whilst transferring the title from your joint names to just you?
If not, and no connection, then if you completed on your transfer on 2nd August what has your conveyancer done to protect that transfer - have they not applied for an official search themselves?
Important to also note that you can't protect a charging order by way of an official search so if there's a link between the two then it's flawed.
So if the official search is not connected to you and your own transactions then ask your conveyancer to submit your own official search (OS1) to protect your transfer and/or lodge the application to register the transfer.

As an extra comment re the one by propertyrental - if you set up an alert and receive a notification then there's nothing to contact HMLR for initially. We can't/shouldn't tell you anything more than what's in the alert as the notification is precisely what it is - an alert that someone has submitted a significant application and IF it's not one you are aware of (so not for example the one ss2020jd refers to) then next step is to contact the named applicant/seek legal advice
Ringing the phone number provided in the alert is simply to answer any Qs re the information provided for example what's an official search or what's a charge?
Lodging an official search or other significant application is 99.9% of the time legitimate. An official search for example is submitted to protect a transfer, lease or charge (legal charge and not a charging order) and occurs 4-5 weeks before an actual application to update the register is submitted.
So we can't halt the search process or provide more information BUT if after your own investigations you believe it is fraudulent you can report it to us at reportafraud@landregistry.gov.uk
There's no point contacting us immediately as you've received an alert with sufficient details fro you to investigate your own checks as explained in my reply.
Do post here with an update if you can as it helps others to understand the process(es) involved 

Hoenir

propertyrental said:

* contact O'Neil Patient solicitors and ask for an explanation.

The ex wll be fully aware I'd suggest. These events don't happen out of the blue. 

RHemmings

Land_Registry said:

As an extra comment re the one by propertyrental - if you set up an alert and receive a notification then there's nothing to contact HMLR for initially. We can't/shouldn't tell you anything more than what's in the alert as the notification is precisely what it is - an alert that someone has submitted a significant application and IF it's not one you are aware of (so not for example the one ss2020jd refers to) then next step is to contact the named applicant/seek legal advice
Ringing the phone number provided in the alert is simply to answer any Qs re the information provided for example what's an official search or what's a charge?
Lodging an official search or other significant application is 99.9% of the time legitimate. An official search for example is submitted to protect a transfer, lease or charge (legal charge and not a charging order) and occurs 4-5 weeks before an actual application to update the register is submitted.
So we can't halt the search process or provide more information BUT if after your own investigations you believe it is fraudulent you can report it to us at reportafraud@landregistry.gov.uk
There's no point contacting us immediately as you've received an alert with sufficient details fro you to investigate your own checks as explained in my reply.
Do post here with an update if you can as it helps others to understand the process(es) involved 

Oh dear. One of your colleagues may have broken your rules. I had a similar situation and phoned to ask what this notification was about - I basically only knew that it was a major bank. The LR person on the phone asked me what I thought it might be - and then confirmed that I had guessed correctly. Is that outside the rules? 

I very much don't want to give more details and potentially get someone into trouble for helping me. But, it would be useful if getting confirmation of what we think the notification concerns being right or not. As this might help the OP here as they feel they know what the notification is about. 

Land_Registry

RHemmings said:

Land_Registry said:

As an extra comment re the one by propertyrental - if you set up an alert and receive a notification then there's nothing to contact HMLR for initially. We can't/shouldn't tell you anything more than what's in the alert as the notification is precisely what it is - an alert that someone has submitted a significant application and IF it's not one you are aware of (so not for example the one ss2020jd refers to) then next step is to contact the named applicant/seek legal advice
Ringing the phone number provided in the alert is simply to answer any Qs re the information provided for example what's an official search or what's a charge?
Lodging an official search or other significant application is 99.9% of the time legitimate. An official search for example is submitted to protect a transfer, lease or charge (legal charge and not a charging order) and occurs 4-5 weeks before an actual application to update the register is submitted.
So we can't halt the search process or provide more information BUT if after your own investigations you believe it is fraudulent you can report it to us at reportafraud@landregistry.gov.uk
There's no point contacting us immediately as you've received an alert with sufficient details fro you to investigate your own checks as explained in my reply.
Do post here with an update if you can as it helps others to understand the process(es) involved 

Oh dear. One of your colleagues may have broken your rules. I had a similar situation and phoned to ask what this notification was about - I basically only knew that it was a major bank. The LR person on the phone asked me what I thought it might be - and then confirmed that I had guessed correctly. Is that outside the rules? 

I very much don't want to give more details and potentially get someone into trouble for helping me. But, it would be useful if getting confirmation of what we think the notification concerns being right or not. As this might help the OP here as they feel they know what the notification is about. 

Not all if you ask a Y/N Q then the answer is fine as you clearly had some awareness of what the application was related to. And that's often the case as posted so whilst an alert might be an initial surprise it's very rarely linked to a fraud. We aren't here to be officious or unhelpful but the actual Alert service is just that, to alert you. We have other services that you can then use to obtain information IF you ned to
There are a whole host of reasons as to why someone might apply for a significant application and vast majority are legitimate. 
Hopefully my explanation as to what an official search is and how a charging order is something quite different will help the OP work through what it might be linked to.
Has the OP for example dealt with NatWest re a remortgage or new mortgage etc or in some other way re a secured loan?
If definitely not then contact ONP direct explain you are the registered owner and see if they can assist. 
And I'd also be asking my ex if they have an idea also - ONP's reference might offer a clue in that regard

RHemmings

Land_Registry said:

RHemmings said:

Land_Registry said:

As an extra comment re the one by propertyrental - if you set up an alert and receive a notification then there's nothing to contact HMLR for initially. We can't/shouldn't tell you anything more than what's in the alert as the notification is precisely what it is - an alert that someone has submitted a significant application and IF it's not one you are aware of (so not for example the one ss2020jd refers to) then next step is to contact the named applicant/seek legal advice
Ringing the phone number provided in the alert is simply to answer any Qs re the information provided for example what's an official search or what's a charge?
Lodging an official search or other significant application is 99.9% of the time legitimate. An official search for example is submitted to protect a transfer, lease or charge (legal charge and not a charging order) and occurs 4-5 weeks before an actual application to update the register is submitted.
So we can't halt the search process or provide more information BUT if after your own investigations you believe it is fraudulent you can report it to us at reportafraud@landregistry.gov.uk
There's no point contacting us immediately as you've received an alert with sufficient details fro you to investigate your own checks as explained in my reply.
Do post here with an update if you can as it helps others to understand the process(es) involved 

Oh dear. One of your colleagues may have broken your rules. I had a similar situation and phoned to ask what this notification was about - I basically only knew that it was a major bank. The LR person on the phone asked me what I thought it might be - and then confirmed that I had guessed correctly. Is that outside the rules? 

I very much don't want to give more details and potentially get someone into trouble for helping me. But, it would be useful if getting confirmation of what we think the notification concerns being right or not. As this might help the OP here as they feel they know what the notification is about. 

Not all if you ask a Y/N Q then the answer is fine as you clearly had some awareness of what the application was related to. And that's often the case as posted so whilst an alert might be an initial surprise it's very rarely linked to a fraud. We aren't here to be officious or unhelpful but the actual Alert service is just that, to alert you. We have other services that you can then use to obtain information IF you ned to
There are a whole host of reasons as to why someone might apply for a significant application and vast majority are legitimate. 

That's very useful to know. I would think that in most situations where I see something, I would be able to couch a Y/N question based on a guess as to what it is about. As can the OP in this thread.