Please help any advice needed selling

sweetiepie123

Before I start let me warn you this is a very long thread but all the points Ive made are vital to get my story across and any advice would be very much appreciated. Bought on mortgage a semi detached three bedroomed house here in Scotland back in 1993 with my husband and went on to have three children. Anyway the marriage broke down due to my husbands alcoholism and abusive nature and finally in September 2006 I made the decision to file for divorce and move out also take the children with me. This wouldnt have been my first choice but as my husband refused to leave and we were desperate to go I managed to find somewhere locally to rent for £595 a month (expensive I know but average for the area I live in). I was studying and in my third year of a degree but as the social security system works very strangely, financially it made more sense for me to leave my course and get help with paying my housing costs at least for the short term measure. (ive had part time jobs off and on since) Anyway finally after much ado I managed to get my drunken husband and his "mates" he had moved in to move out in early March 2007. I got on to the estate agents straight away and they put the house on the market for £155,000. Within a week the estate agent got back to us, they had a couple ready to buy looking for a quick sale as they had already sold their house and were living in rented accommodation, perfect I thought, how wrong was I? so the house was sitting empty and we due to sign the missives in May, however a problem was discovered with title deeds (the house is about 350 years old) apparently there had been a mistake in the wording of the deeds to with rights of way with neighbour and it was no longer legal, it was to be re written by our old solicitor who had overlooked the mistake when we bought it and sent away to the land registry in Edinburgh. It was a long old process that involved our new solicitor, our old solicitor and two other solicitors as the neighbours were now using different ones as they were divorced by now and no longer lived together. We had to get a surveyor involved to check the land out but eventually it was all settled by September 2007. Apart from that before Id decided to move out there had been another descrepancy in the title deeds when it was discovered that due the neighbours trying to sell their house pending their divorce they discovered that the house they lived in didnt actually belong to them they had only signed missives for the garden ground back in 1970, the deeds to their house were still attached to our property. (Both the houses belonged to my father in law many years before) so basically we owned their house too and they had the garden, anyway they offered us money to sign the deeds over through their solicitor etc and we eventually came to an agreement that we would sign over the house if they gave us some of their garden ground that we could add to ours. This went on for 5 years and eventually was agreed after I had left, now I wish we had taken the money!!! however we decided this bit of ground would not be included in the sale of the house and we could sell it on at a later date. This was not to be as just a couple of months ago it was brought to our attention that there was a clause in the deeds that said the ground was not to be built on and was to stay with the occupiers of the house, so in fact it ended up being useless to us and has never been added onto the purchase price of our house and we have ended up just giving it to the potential buyers. Anyway back on track.....we have had other problems such as french doors were put into the house before we moved in apparently there was no building warrant for them, surely this should have been noted when we bought the place? weve had to pay an architect to go and check them, luckily they were ok but still the solicitors bill mounts up. Anyway because of the mess up with deeds etc the missives couldnt be signed and the buyers decided to pull out which was devastating for us after waiting so long already. Then the estate agent tells us he personally knows the buyers he will speak to them ask them if they would like to move in on a rental agreement as its only going to be a matter of weeks before the deeds are all sorted out, just let them pay enough to cover your mortgage (which is £250 a month) so we all agreed, nothing on paper, our solicitor btw adviced us against doing this but how else was I going to pay the mortgage? he did however promise to draw up a rental contract that never appeared but tbh I wasnt that concerned as if anything did go wrong they didnt have a leg to stand on either and having a husband like mine he wasnt going to bother about what it said on a bit of paper if he wanted them out. As far as I was concerned they had moved in in so they definately were going to buy the place. They moved in, seemed like things were finally moving...by this time its the beginning of June and my husbands made financial effort at all with the mortgae or children, Ive borrowed money from my parents up to this point (£6000) to try and keep us out of arrears with joint credit cards and the mortgage to be paid however things are still in a mess. Then I get another letter from the solicitor (this is approx letter 30-40) saying the buyers are having to re apply for their mortgage because their circumstance have changed (she was on maternity leave) then we discover they are getting the money from some financial advisor and not a high street bank, we are advised this could take a while. We get another letter from our solicitor after many many phonecalls saying settlement will be December 21st 2007, hurrah at last. By this time our joint bank accounts have been closed due to being overdrawn and the buyers have had to resort to putting the £250 through my door and then me putting in into my account and phoning up the mortgage collections branch and it paying it that way. No receipts nothing. All very dodgy I know but all Im concerned about is paying the mortgage. You know what Im going to say of course the missives did not get signed, it took longer than expected, usual excuses, solicitor off sick, someone on holiday, lost paperwork, Ive heard them all. I must have made thousands of phonecalls to our solicitor (btw I should have said me and my husband kept the same solicitor to keep costs down) Finally , finally after being promised week after week they have had their mortgage approved and we got a letter of qualified acceptance, we have been and signed the missives this Monday, the solicitor says that he is just waiting for the buyers funds to tranferred to him. Does this mean they have signed the missives too? is it all legally binding now? I thought you had to sign the missives on the same day?
This has all been very very stressful , I feel like Ive been running a marathan and hoping Im finally on the home stretch, does anyone think it would be worthwhile taking legal action against the old solicitor in relation to the title deeds? has anyone on her ever taken a solicitor to court? somebody did tell me I shopuld get in touch with The Law Society of Scotland. All I can say is its gonna be one whopper of bill......its taken from offer on house to selling approx one year and one month. Will let you know what the bill was when we get it

poppy10_2

Let's make that a bit more readable for you.

Before I start let me warn you this is a very long thread but all the points Ive made are vital to get my story across and any advice would be very much appreciated.

Bought on mortgage a semi detached three bedroomed house here in Scotland back in 1993 with my husband and went on to have three children. Anyway the marriage broke down due to my husbands alcoholism and abusive nature and finally in September 2006 I made the decision to file for divorce and move out also take the children with me. This wouldnt have been my first choice but as my husband refused to leave and we were desperate to go I managed to find somewhere locally to rent for £595 a month (expensive I know but average for the area I live in).

I was studying and in my third year of a degree but as the social security system works very strangely, financially it made more sense for me to leave my course and get help with paying my housing costs at least for the short term measure. (ive had part time jobs off and on since) Anyway finally after much ado I managed to get my drunken husband and his "mates" he had moved in to move out in early March 2007.

I got on to the estate agents straight away and they put the house on the market for £155,000. Within a week the estate agent got back to us, they had a couple ready to buy looking for a quick sale as they had already sold their house and were living in rented accommodation, perfect I thought, how wrong was I?

so the house was sitting empty and we due to sign the missives in May, however a problem was discovered with title deeds (the house is about 350 years old) apparently there had been a mistake in the wording of the deeds to with rights of way with neighbour and it was no longer legal, it was to be re written by our old solicitor who had overlooked the mistake when we bought it and sent away to the land registry in Edinburgh. It was a long old process that involved our new solicitor, our old solicitor and two other solicitors as the neighbours were now using different ones as they were divorced by now and no longer lived together. We had to get a surveyor involved to check the land out but eventually it was all settled by September 2007.

Apart from that before Id decided to move out there had been another discrepancy in the title deeds when it was discovered that due the neighbours trying to sell their house pending their divorce they discovered that the house they lived in didnt actually belong to them they had only signed missives for the garden ground back in 1970, the deeds to their house were still attached to our property. (Both the houses belonged to my father in law many years before) so basically we owned their house too and they had the garden.
Anyway they offered us money to sign the deeds over through their solicitor etc and we eventually came to an agreement that we would sign over the house if they gave us some of their garden ground that we could add to ours. This went on for 5 years and eventually was agreed after I had left, now I wish we had taken the money!!!

However we decided this bit of ground would not be included in the sale of the house and we could sell it on at a later date. This was not to be as just a couple of months ago it was brought to our attention that there was a clause in the deeds that said the ground was not to be built on and was to stay with the occupiers of the house, so in fact it ended up being useless to us and has never been added onto the purchase price of our house and we have ended up just giving it to the potential buyers.

Anyway back on track.....we have had other problems such as french doors were put into the house before we moved in apparently there was no building warrant for them, surely this should have been noted when we bought the place? weve had to pay an architect to go and check them, luckily they were ok but still the solicitors bill mounts up.

Anyway because of the mess up with deeds etc the missives couldnt be signed and the buyers decided to pull out which was devastating for us after waiting so long already. Then the estate agent tells us he personally knows the buyers he will speak to them ask them if they would like to move in on a rental agreement as its only going to be a matter of weeks before the deeds are all sorted out, just let them pay enough to cover your mortgage (which is £250 a month) so we all agreed, nothing on paper, our solicitor btw adviced us against doing this but how else was I going to pay the mortgage?
He did however promise to draw up a rental contract that never appeared but tbh I wasnt that concerned as if anything did go wrong they didnt have a leg to stand on either and having a husband like mine he wasnt going to bother about what it said on a bit of paper if he wanted them out. As far as I was concerned they had moved in in so they definately were going to buy the place.

They moved in, seemed like things were finally moving...by this time its the beginning of June and my husbands made financial effort at all with the mortgage or children, Ive borrowed money from my parents up to this point (£6000) to try and keep us out of arrears with joint credit cards and the mortgage to be paid however things are still in a mess.

Then I get another letter from the solicitor (this is approx letter 30-40) saying the buyers are having to re apply for their mortgage because their circumstance have changed (she was on maternity leave) then we discover they are getting the money from some financial advisor and not a high street bank, we are advised this could take a while.
We get another letter from our solicitor after many many phonecalls saying settlement will be December 21st 2007, hurrah at last. By this time our joint bank accounts have been closed due to being overdrawn and the buyers have had to resort to putting the £250 through my door and then me putting in into my account and phoning up the mortgage collections branch and it paying it that way. No receipts nothing. All very dodgy I know but all Im concerned about is paying the mortgage.

You know what Im going to say of course the missives did not get signed, it took longer than expected, usual excuses, solicitor off sick, someone on holiday, lost paperwork, Ive heard them all. I must have made thousands of phonecalls to our solicitor (btw I should have said me and my husband kept the same solicitor to keep costs down)

Finally , finally after being promised week after week they have had their mortgage approved and we got a letter of qualified acceptance, we have been and signed the missives this Monday, the solicitor says that he is just waiting for the buyers funds to tranferred to him. Does this mean they have signed the missives too? is it all legally binding now? I thought you had to sign the missives on the same day?

This has all been very very stressful , I feel like Ive been running a marathon and hoping Im finally on the home stretch.

Does anyone think it would be worthwhile taking legal action against the old solicitor in relation to the title deeds? Has anyone on her ever taken a solicitor to court?

Somebody did tell me I shopuld get in touch with The Law Society of Scotland. All I can say is its gonna be one whopper of bill......its taken from offer on house to selling approx one year and one month. Will let you know what the bill was when we get it.

pinkshoes

Poppy, I wish I'd scrolled down a little further before reading the original post and almost getting crossed eyes!!!

Sweetiepie, I'm sure someone who knows a thing or two about scottish law will be along to help at some point. What a chaotic ordeal though!!! I hope it all ends well!