Charge on property - not actioned!!

[Omegamike]

A Charge was placed no my previous property (it's a long story!) and registered via HM Land Registry. I was told it would be actioned and will come into effect on exchange of contracts and taken from the sale proceeds. As it happens it was never actioned, someone, somewhere, somehow didn't do the proper legal paper work and it was overlooked (solicitors). Does this mean the purchase of my property was unlawfull? Anyway, now I find that the solicitors acting on behalf of the buyers are the same company as I employed to sort the 'charge' on the property, a charge I was kind of forced into in the first place. I could have gone through the courts but my sol said it best to get things done 'quickly' and with as little fuss a possible. Going through the court would be too lengthy. Now could this be seen as a 'conflict of interests' if the same company wanted a speedy sale of my property to my buyers? It was their second go at buying my property and they were VERY insitstant they wanted it and would move heaven and earth to purchase as quickly as possible, they were on a time limit and time had just about run out. Because another sol who was expecting the money from the 'charge' made all sorts of threats to my buyers sols (also my sols) so they paid the charge out of their own accounts and are now persuing me for the money!! I'm now unemployed and have very little savings. Am I liable or perhaps I could offer to pay �x a month towards the �14,000 charge? or could I complain to one (or more) of the regulatory bodies about the conflict of interests and possible failure in their statutory duty to complete the sale in accordance with the law. Heeelllppppp ;o/ thanks.

[themas]

1. It seems you ended up with �14000 from the sale which you should not have had (i.e. because it should have gone to the creditor who had the charge). You knew the charge was there and that you owed the money. You will have had a completion statement from your solicitor so will have known the charge money had not been taken. As you now have little savings, you have presumably spent the money. Do you think it was right for you to do so? Certainly you have a moral & ethical liability to repay the solicitor; whether you could in any way avoid doing so on the basis that the problem was caused by their negligence I don't know.

2. You can certainly complain about their negligence, but I don't think it will get you very far because you appear to have gained from it, rather than having been adversely affected.

3. I don't understand why you think there was a conflict of interest. There is nothing wrong in a firm acting for different people on different transactions (& I assume the charge was a quite separate transaction from the house sale).

4. You appear aggrieved that the solicitor persuaded you to accept the charge without it going to Court. But it seems you are not disputing that you owed the money so the charge would have been put on if it had gone through the Court process.

[Omegamike]

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(

[themas]

What you now say puts a rather different complexion on it - your first post made no mention of a lodger & the charge being money to buy him/her out. However:

1. You say it was done at your expense. This is only so if - had you gone down the Court route - you would have got the lodger out without paying �14000 and still been able to sell the house for the same amount as you actually got.

2. If you had buyers lined up (in other words an offer had been made and accepted) what did they know about the problem with the lodger? Did they expect to have to wait & then change their mind and say they couldn't?

3. If the solicitor originally advised you to go to Court & then changed his advice once he had been instructed by the buyers you might possibly have a case against him. Have you asked the buyers when they instructed him so you can check on this? If you want to pursue a complaint there is a procedure for doing so - look at the Law Society website.

4. Who decided on the �14000 figure? It seems a lot to buy someone out unless he did have an arguable case for having some security.

[Omegamike]

thanks for your input/advice themas. I have indeed looked at the Law Society website and a couple of others. I intend taking this further, I mite still have to pay the charge but I would like to get to the bottom of this whole sorry affair! as there are far too many loose ends...... thanks again ;o)