Help!

[kerry9397]

I am having a nightmare of a time. Although I've spoken to a solicitor briefly, I haven't commissioned them to do anything yet and seem to have three options. I have no idea which option is likely to be the quickest and cheapest...

My husband and I separated 3 years ago, but remained married and had a joint mortgage on the house I live in with my two children.

My husband recently died and I contacted my building society to inform them.

They moved the mortgage into my sole name and advised me to inform Land Registry to take his name off the deeds.

When I contacted them I found out that my name has never been put onto the deeds even though I've been on the mortgage for the last 7 years.

In his Will, my husband didn't even mention the house (mainly due to the fact that we thought I would just inherit his half), however, a 'catch-all' paragraph at the bottom says anything not mentioned he leaves to the trustee.

The trustee, so happens to be his girlfriend - ie the woman he left me for three years ago.

As you can imagine, I'm in a bit of a state at the moment.

The options I seem to have are:

1) ask her to apply for probate and 'gift' the house to me;

2) contest the Will; or

3) start legal proceedings against the solicitors that dealt with the re-mortgage 7 years ago.

I'm at an absolute loss as to which option would be the most cost-effective to me.

If anyone has any idea how long/expensive any of these routes are likely to take, I'd be very grateful to know.

Thanks

[lawsanass]

Some one has made a huge mistake here somewhen !!! You can not have a mortgage in your name (or joint mortgage) if the property is not in both your names. The property deeds should be held by the building society you have the mortgage with, you can get these checked (for a fee), or get copies sent to you for a solicitor to check. Something is very wrong and it can not be your fault, I would think the building society should be very worried if you make them aware of the whole situation as theoritically they have lent you money and if you default on payments they have no way of recouping the money as they can not make you sell a house that you do not own, its all madness

[kerry9397]

That's the only thing I've not done yet - contact the building society. I wasn't sure whether that would make things worse at the moment. I have been on the Land Registry site and downloaded a copy of the deeds and they are indeed in my husband's sole name and at an address where he lived over 3 years before we moved into this house.

[Ethel]

Building societies don't hold deeds any more - it is all computerised at the Land Registry and you already have copies.

Don't balk at hiring a solicitor - you need proper legal advice to claim your rights both in the property and against the building society and solicitors.

There seems to have been a massive blunder.

Have you seen the mortgage papers? Was your name there alongside your husband?

Was there any insurance on the mortgage that would pay it off in event of death?

Who has been paying the mortgage and maintainaining the property since your split? Just you, or has your husband been paying as well?

[kerry9397]

I've got papers from the building society and they've all been in joint names since we remortgaged 7 years ago. I've even got a copy of a letter from the solicitor who dealt with the remortgage addressed to both of us stating that they are dealing with our joint application.

Unfortunately, due to a pre-existing medical condition, my husband did not have any life insurance, so the mortgage will not be paid off.

Since we split my husband has been paying maintenance which covered half the mortgage plus some extra towards living expenses, although this was informal and was never agreed through court/solicitors.

The mortgage payments have been coming out of my bank account for the last 7 years and I have spent money improving the house since he left (double glazing, decorating, etc).

[themas]

What do you mean when you say the deeds are "at an address where he lived over 3 years before we moved into this house"?

The only reason I can think of for his old address being on the deeds of your house is that he owned the house in his sole name before you moved into it. If that was the case, then his name would appear in the Proprietorship Register part of the land certificate.

If that is where it does appear, then it seems that the transfer to joint ownership has never been effected. If so, the solicitor and the mortgage lender both appear to have been at fault.

You refer to a re-mortgage 7 years ago. Were you living in the same house before then, & did you believe you owned it jointly before the re-mortgage? If so, the error may go back to an earlier time - if the re-mortgage did not appear to involve anything to do with the ownership and was with the same mortgage lender as the previous mortgage then it is possible neither the solicitor nor the lender considered it necessary to check the title deeds when doing the re-mortgage.

You need to be clear about this because there may be no point pursuing the solicitor & lender concerning the re-mortgage if someone else made the error beforehand.

In any case, I suggest you get as much information as you can from the lender - going right back, not just to the 7 year point. Then you will no doubt need a solicitor to act for you, unless the girl friend is willing to gift you the house and you are able to trust her 110%.

[kerry9397]

We moved into this house ten years ago and, at that time, I was on an existing mortgage for another property. We were advised that I couldn't be on two, so when we first moved in we had a mortgage just in my husband's name. This was on a 3-year fixed rate. Once I been removed from the other mortgage, we approached the building society and were told that it would cost several hundred pounds to change the mortgage over to a joint one, so we decided to wait till the end of the 3 year period before doing so.

So basically, I understood that up until we re-mortgaged the house was in his name, but the whole idea of us getting a joint mortgage was to offer us both the same level of security, as we'd both invested the same amount of money in the house.

After 3 years of living here, the fixed rate came to an end and we shopped round and applied for a joint mortgage with a different building society, and we/I've been with them ever since.

[themas]

OK, but I still don't understand the issue I raised in first para. of my previous post. If the deeds show an address for your husband different from the address of the property then - from what you say - something seems to have been wrong when the purchase was first registered.

Apart from that, it is the re-mortgage 7 years ago which seems to have been done incorrectly. What you can do might depend on what instructions were given to the solicitor and who by. Did you engage a solicitor to act for you in the re-mortgage, or was it a case where you approached a mortgage lender & they instructed a solicitor? If the latter, I suspect the solicitor will have no duty of care to you because you were not his client, so your remedy must be against the lender.

Have you any idea whether you made it clear to the lender at the time that the house was not in joint names? This shouldn't make any difference because their solicitor should have checked, but they may try to pass the buck & avoid responsibility if the situation was not made clear to them.