Re caution registered on property.

[Landmann]

My father has been in a nursing home and passed away in January 2012.
We owned the house jointly but he was funded by the NHS so we were not liable for any of the care home fees.
I have just registered myself as the sole owner of the house in accordance with the terms of the will and asked for a copy of the entry held at the land registry and was surprised to find a caution belonging to the council.
I have queried it with the land registry and the council and they stated it was put on the house in case for some reason my father was no longer eligible for NHS funding.
Under these circumstances the council could have not taken any of the house as long as I did not sell it before my father passed away but the council said it was put there in case I did.
I have asked the council and the land registry if I should have been informed about the caution but they have stated they were under no obligation to tell me.
The council arranged for the caution to be removed when I contacted them and I have got another copy of the entry and it is not there.
What concerns me is if say I had not found out about this caution and then I wanted to sell the property say 10 years later staff at the council may have changed etc and it could take weeks to get things sorted.
What would have the situation been if say as a result of this possible delay if I lost the buyer and I had to take £5,000 less to get the property sold.

Landman

[d9f1c7]

it would delay sale but if you had to rush it and take less then that would have been your personal decision. I'd say you'd have no chance at any sort of redress if that was the case.

[SHARP70]

I think the concil's answer would be the sale price was not definite until contracts were exchanged so it may have changed anyway.

[buildersmate]

Landmann, the purpose of the caution is so that the holder of the caution gets to find out about any sale (because the Land Registry tells them). It does mean that the council has a financial interest in the property - merely that they are claiming to have one. It is not the same thing as a legal charge.

So they could not stop the sale.

[SHARP70]

Hi Buildersmate

What I think Landman is worried about is the council may have suddenly got notice of the sale and got a court order to stop it and then realised the reason for the caution was now out of date.
Knowing how inefficient councils are this is always possible.
I do know somebody was in legal action with a house owner once and got a court order to stop the sale.
The person lost his case and the house sale was delayed.
I do not know if the house owner suffered a loss as a result or if any loss was claimed for.

Bill

[SHARP70]

Hi Landmann

I agree it is worrying a caution could be put on a house without the owner's knowledge.

Bill

[tonywiltshire]

The registration of caution would need to be removed (warning off) before sale and it is not a time consuming process and would be unlikely to cause you to lose a sale. If you did claim you had lost a sale and had to accept an offer of £5,000 less, I think you would find it very difficult to have any remedy.

[buildersmate]

Noticed that there's a missing 'not' in my answer - 'It is not mean the council ...'. Sorry.
I see your point, Sharp - probably true.