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Thanks for the reply themas. Hmmmm.... I see what you mean but....
I was told in no uncertain terms that the charge was completely out of my hands and that the whole point of a charge on a property is that there is no way out of paying it and that it would be actioned through the legal system. It wasn't recorded on the completion statement from my property lawyer and the buyers sols failed to conduct proper searches thus the charge was missed due to their negligence. They were in such a rush to complete the purchase of my property..... They thought xmas came early ;o)
With reference to your para 3 - I actually had a court date set to get the illegal lodger out of my property to allow me to sell it but all of a sudden my sol was talking about it would take months and months and the best way forward was to offer a sum of money to get rid of them! (the �14,000 charge) with hindsight I should have smelt a rat but I put all my faith in my sol. Meanwhile the buyers of my property and their sol (my sol) were obviously delighted that the sale was imminent because the lodger was now gone leaving the property vacant for sale.... I'm not accusing anyone of being 'underhand' but surely the term I could use is 'conflict of interest' if their clients who were buying my property were put in a position to complete the sail in a matter of weeks rather than months (months which they didn't have). I'm not necessarily moaning about having to pay the charge but I'm pretty suspicious about the whole thing being so convenient for the buyers at my expense? There is something not quite rite about the whole thing. Perhaps it's a good idea if I approached one of the regulators about this (Council for Licensed Conveyancers, Solicitors Regulation Authority, Legal Complaints Service, Legal Services Ombudsman)? or am I fighting a lost cause :o(