Discovered hidden council deed after buying house – any legal options?

pretamang

very difficult to get anything out of an insolvent company, but not impossible as that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't still active/trading.

it might be worth asking your solicitor if there was any type of personal guarantee involved, which makes the individuals responsible for declaration made by the company. if they had a mortgage then often the lender would want personal guarantees so they aren't left chasing a dissolved company if there were arrears.

user1977

pretamang said:

it might be worth asking your solicitor if there was any type of personal guarantee involved, which makes the individuals responsible for declaration made by the company. if they had a mortgage then often the lender would want personal guarantees so they aren't left chasing a dissolved company if there were arrears.

No, it won't be worth asking. Guarantees are in favour of specific creditors, not something generally enforceable by anybody who's owed money by the company (otherwise it kinda defeats the point of limited liability companies).

Grumpy_chap

UKresident3333 said:

Thanks for all your responses. I've since found out the limited company the developers used owes more than it has and net worth is negative, so am I right in thinking even if I won the case (as I'm assuming they would fight it as they're in the red) I wouldn't get a pay out as they'd have to pay off their other debts first? Would it make more sense to take legal action against my solicitor as they should have spotted it?

Was the house owned by the Ltd Co immediately prior to your purchase of the house, or was the house registered in the names of the individuals?

It is just, there seems to be a period of around 5 years between the development (splitting the house into two) and your purchase.
Developers tend to flip properties rather more quickly than that.  The obvious exception would be if the Developer was renting the property out between refurbishment and sale.

UKresident3333 said:

I bought my house about 2 years ago.

UKresident3333 said:

But if they signed the deed in 2018, 

WIAWSNB

user1977 said:

My point was actually that if this restriction was applied only to the OP's property as a direct result of a Planning condition being applied due to the 'split', then the vendor would have even greater cause to be aware of their anomaly in the 'hood. Ergo, claiming they 'don't know' is even less plausible.
"You really didn't know that your house was the only one with this restriction?!!"

But it doesn't apply only to this property, the same principle will apply to every "new" property created since the permits came into force. So any buyer with a vague awareness of that principle would be prewarned. 

I'd agree with that, but how many 'new' properties have been created on this street? I suspect only a small minority of existing homes would have been split like this, and I'd warrant that the remaining 'unsplit' properties are surely unlikely to have had this condition imposed upon them by the council. 

It was only due to the splitting of this property that it was made a condition for planning to be granted to the property developer. Ergo, this was rare in the 'hood, and the developer was a, er, developer. They didn't know what they were signing up to? Pah and piffle. 

It is possible, but implausible, that the vendor did not know. 

EssexHebridean

IIRC the OP has already confirmed that nothing appears on the title, and that they have only recently looked at the planning portal and found the deed there. If we also assume that nothing appeared in the LA search (as if something had, the OP would have been aware of that when they were given the search during the purchase recess)  the how would the solicitor have knows, if they were not being told any more than the OP was by the other side? As I said previously - the solicitors can only work with the documents that are made available to them, or that fall within the remit of standard research - local searches etc. 

silvercar

EssexHebridean said:

IIRC the OP has already confirmed that nothing appears on the title, and that they have only recently looked at the planning portal and found the deed there. If we also assume that nothing appeared in the LA search (as if something had, the OP would have been aware of that when they were given the search during the purchase recess)  the how would the solicitor have knows, if they were not being told any more than the OP was by the other side? As I said previously - the solicitors can only work with the documents that are made available to them, or that fall within the remit of standard research - local searches etc. 

Worth checking that it wasn’t a document that the solicitor had but overlooked at the time.

UKresident3333

As this is probably going to be a lengthy and complicated legal process against the seller (the ltd company) and they are already in debt so unlikely to be able to pay me, I'm now thinking going through a 'no win no fee' legal process would make more sense as I'm unlikely to actually get anything out of this anyway so don't want to spend thousands on legal fees to end up with nothing and a loss. What are your thoughts on this no win no fee process? I'm aware they'll take a cut of anything paid out but I can't think of any other option

Section62

UKresident3333 said:

As this is probably going to be a lengthy and complicated legal process against the seller (the ltd company) and they are already in debt so unlikely to be able to pay me, I'm now thinking going through a 'no win no fee' legal process would make more sense as I'm unlikely to actually get anything out of this anyway so don't want to spend thousands on legal fees to end up with nothing and a loss. What are your thoughts on this no win no fee process? I'm aware they'll take a cut of anything paid out but I can't think of any other option

No 'no win no fee' outfit will take on a case unless there is a good chance of winning, and they will be able to get hold of the money.  If the seller's debts means there's nothing in it for you to go alone, then a 'no win no fee' company will see it as a total loss.

lincroft1710

UKresident3333 said:

As this is probably going to be a lengthy and complicated legal process against the seller (the ltd company) and they are already in debt so unlikely to be able to pay me, I'm now thinking going through a 'no win no fee' legal process would make more sense as I'm unlikely to actually get anything out of this anyway so don't want to spend thousands on legal fees to end up with nothing and a loss. What are your thoughts on this no win no fee process? I'm aware they'll take a cut of anything paid out but I can't think of any other option

As this is probably going to be a lengthy and complicated legal process against the seller (the ltd company) and they are already in debt so unlikely to be able to pay you, you would be better off forgetting about it altogether

EssexHebridean

silvercar said:

EssexHebridean said:

IIRC the OP has already confirmed that nothing appears on the title, and that they have only recently looked at the planning portal and found the deed there. If we also assume that nothing appeared in the LA search (as if something had, the OP would have been aware of that when they were given the search during the purchase recess)  the how would the solicitor have knows, if they were not being told any more than the OP was by the other side? As I said previously - the solicitors can only work with the documents that are made available to them, or that fall within the remit of standard research - local searches etc. 

Worth checking that it wasn’t a document that the solicitor had but overlooked at the time.

True - although I suspect fairly unlikely to be the case as the places it could have appeared would also be places that the buyer would also have had access to - the title and the search are both routinely sent to the buyer for their comments. I think the OP has confirmed that it didn’t appear in either place, and replies to standard enquiries around the parking side of things led back to the very location that the deed didn’t appear in too - with hindsight this is suspicious, but “refer to your own searches…” isn’t that unusual in replies to enquiries. 

One question in my mind is whether in fact there was a requirement for the deed to be lodged at the Land Registry originally - and it wasn’t. Even then though, where the responsibility for that would be said to lie would be another question entirely, and might not get the OP anywhere in any event.