Anyone been in a similar situation?

Morning right here we go: will try to keep this brief

Saw house on tinternet few months back thought nothing of it bit out of our price range
Saw same house beginning June the price had been lowered 5k
We thought - might as well go and see
Went to see, perfect house for us, offered 11K under asking price Seller accepted first offer and said "was really pleased it was going to a young family"
Sorted out mortgage, survey etc all ready to Exchange when Seller's solicitor applied to Land Registry Seller's ex-girlfriend, who walked out over 12 months ago taking everything in house with her, put an application to LR against the property because she put in 5K towards the deposit, her name is not on title deeds or mortgage.

So now we are just waiting for his solicitor to sort all this out.

We have been really patient but what do we do?

Any advice?

We don't want to lose this house but if we can't buy it we want to know and no one seems to be able to tell us anything definite. Our solicitor is nearly useless, think she retire 10 years ago just continues to come into the office %-)

Anyone been in a similar situation, if so how did it get resolved? Any ideas what we should do?
We are thinking to push the agents, as they are the ones making the most money out of the Sale, our Mortgage agreement runs out beginning of October, surely it won't take until then to sort this out.

Thing is the Seller wants to sell to us, we want to buy, we are in a position to move, how much can the ex-girlfriends claim prevent this?

Any advice to help me sleep would be so gratefully appreciated.

Regards,
Denise

Hi :)

I replied to you on the seperation and divorce board about a week ago I think it was?

Still having trouble with the sellers ex eh?

Has her application successfully been added to the Land Registry? If it has, she obviously had a legitimate claim on the house in some respect. This will mean her and the seller will have to come to some agreement on the sale of the house.

I'm guessing as she put 5k towards the deposit she is wanting this back? She is probably asking the seller to give this to her once completion has taken place.

It sounds like ex has done her bit in trying to get her money back. It would be down to the seller now to come to an agreement with the ex so the sale can take place. If they are disagreeing on how to proceed, well how long do you expect for the sale to take? How long is a piece of string to be honest. Until they sort this out you won't be able to exchange and complete on the property.

By the way, all that estate agents do is chase the solicitors for updates and be the go between for seller and buyer. That's all they do. Putting pressure on them will do simply nothing as it's down to the solicitors to sort out all the nitty gritty part of the legal process.

Also your solicitor is pretty helpless too, if she was all ready to exchange it sounds like she had the paperwork all ready. But she cannot force either the ex's solicitor or the sellers solicitor to do anything.

It's all down to the ex and the seller to sort this dispute. If the seller says there is nothing he can do about it, he is lying. His ex obviously wants something and if it's legitmately stopping the sale he HAS to deal with the situation immediately. If she has a legal right to 5k back and the charge is against the property then he has to give her that money on completion. If he is refusing then he is simply holding the sale up by being stubborn.

Thanks again Sarah,

We are going to pop round to the Seller and see him in person we think this is the only way we can get a straight answer about what the hold up is and what can be done about it and how long it is all going to take.

Not sure what good it will do but it's better than just sitting here waiting for the solicitors to try and sort it all out. We are trying to push our solicitor to get his solicitor to push her solicitor as this can't go on indefinitely. Surely if she is being vindictive then she can't hold up the sale forever and if she does has a claim then he has to resolve it to sell the house to anyone.

So the advice from our friends whom have bought and sold before is to pop round, well the hubby is going to, and speak to the Seller in person see what is what.

This house sale is beginning to stress us out, particularly me, big time, I am starting to lose sleep and was sick the other morning and this isn't healthy, we need to know if we can buy this house in our time scale with our mortgage agreement or not. If not we need to look at other possibilities. It's not fair to leave us hanging in the balance not knowing if we can buy this house or not.

So we are going straight to the organ-grinder so to speak see what he has to say. Think we are doing this today.

I do hope we can shed some light on this situation.

Thanks again.
Denise

Hi,

Your solicitor should have picked up long before now, the fact there is a charge on the property. All the seller has to do, is agree to pay her what she wants - which I believe was the return of her £5k deposit - and the charge will be lifted. It's that simple.

If he chooses not to pay her what she is claiming is hers, he will never be able to sell it to anyone whether that's in a year or 10 years. I doubt she's being vindictive (although the seller might see it like that!), she's just making sure she gets what's hers.

I think the ball is in the sellers court now so would be a good idea to have a chat with him.

Love S.

Thanks Scatalie,

Not sure how but this has now been sorted out the charge against the property was dropped, or not upheld by the Land Registry last week and we have now exchanged contracts.
According to what we have been told it was more vindictive rather than substantiated but that was nothing to do with us, he might have agreed to pay her 5K or percentage of, or he might not, either way we are hoping to complete next Friday, hurray and housie will be ours.

We were of the opinion that he had to get it sorted to sell it to anyone yes, and apparently he tried to thrash out this problem with her solicitor BEFORE he even put it on the market, so I do think it was more vindictive or bad advice than an actual valid claim. But as said that's not for us to need to know we just want to buy the place what came beforehand is nothing to do with us.

Thanks again.
Denise