£10k BILL IS THIS FRAUD
Discussion
Breadvan72 said:
I have been on PH too long, as I now have a yard full of MX5s and political views well to the right of Hitler, but also several advanced diseases, lots of unpaid speeding tickets, a collection of failed businesses, several angry ex wives, and a stupidly large mortgage on a really terrible house in Surrey.
Don't fret BV - I can do you a deal on a job lot of dinghies, only ever used once...Breadvan72 said:
Some suggestions -
1. Stop making assumptions of bad faith and yelling fraud, for now. If there has been any deliberate misconduct, that may become relevant , but for now you need to stop being emotional and need to find out what has actually happened.
2. Go back to the starting point: find out under which statutory scheme the grant was made in 2008. Note that most of the 1986 Act cited in the Council's document from 2017 was repealed in 2002. The relevant grant-making power appears most likely to be this one -
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/1860/arti...
3. Find out what repayment conditions were part of the grant. Note that only legislation could make the OP as a non party to the grant application liable for repayment. If the obligation to replay was contractual, the obligation could only lie on a party to the contract. If the obligation to repay arose from a statutory requirement, then the OP might be liable. The provision that I refer to above does not on its face appear to empower the Council to impose a liability on a person not party to the grant application, but, importantly, it does empower the Council to take a charge on a property.
4. To carry out this investigation, I recommend that you instruct a new solicitor, and preferably not one at a small High Street firm. I can recommend some solicitors by PM. I can also recommend direct access barristers who specialise in housing law and in public law.
5. The reasons for doing that are (1) amidst the confusion described by the OP, a fresh pair of eyes on the problem may be a good idea, and (2) it is possible, although by no means clear that the solicitor instructed up to now may have made one or more mistakes that might give rise to a negligence claim.
6. Most importantly, OP, please learn about capital letters, punctuation, and paragraphs. I feel dizzy after reading your Joycean stream of consciousness posts*.
IAAL, IANYL, have fun.
* This bit was put in to please Terminator.
Err -- I said most of this on page 3 back in 2017.1. Stop making assumptions of bad faith and yelling fraud, for now. If there has been any deliberate misconduct, that may become relevant , but for now you need to stop being emotional and need to find out what has actually happened.
2. Go back to the starting point: find out under which statutory scheme the grant was made in 2008. Note that most of the 1986 Act cited in the Council's document from 2017 was repealed in 2002. The relevant grant-making power appears most likely to be this one -
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/1860/arti...
3. Find out what repayment conditions were part of the grant. Note that only legislation could make the OP as a non party to the grant application liable for repayment. If the obligation to replay was contractual, the obligation could only lie on a party to the contract. If the obligation to repay arose from a statutory requirement, then the OP might be liable. The provision that I refer to above does not on its face appear to empower the Council to impose a liability on a person not party to the grant application, but, importantly, it does empower the Council to take a charge on a property.
4. To carry out this investigation, I recommend that you instruct a new solicitor, and preferably not one at a small High Street firm. I can recommend some solicitors by PM. I can also recommend direct access barristers who specialise in housing law and in public law.
5. The reasons for doing that are (1) amidst the confusion described by the OP, a fresh pair of eyes on the problem may be a good idea, and (2) it is possible, although by no means clear that the solicitor instructed up to now may have made one or more mistakes that might give rise to a negligence claim.
6. Most importantly, OP, please learn about capital letters, punctuation, and paragraphs. I feel dizzy after reading your Joycean stream of consciousness posts*.
IAAL, IANYL, have fun.
* This bit was put in to please Terminator.
Edited by Breadvan72 on Tuesday 29th September 08:21
turbo9111 said:
In real need of some good advice here, we purchased our new home in Febuary this year a loverly cottage with with 14 acres of land, when we were perusing the purchase the solicitors searches and the selling vendors confirmed that the place had flooded back in 2007 when we had the big floods in this area i.e., Tewkesbury got hit bad along with surrounding areas, The selling vendors also confirmed the bund around the cottage had been constructed to stop it flooding in the future, ok we gave it some thought and decided to purchase.... now 9 months later we have received a letter that the previous owners obtained a grant for £10k from the local district council and the grant is due for repayment upon change of ownership of the property,
basically if the previous owners ever sell the grant must be repaid, This was never mentioned by the selling vendors and our solicitors searches and we paid extra and had two done never picked up on this, But along with the recent shocker letter from the district council says we have records that searches were carried out but no request was made of a legislation search, I have spoken in depth to my solicitor who says there was 100% no evidence that a legislation search was necessary or needed and no evidence from the previous searches picked up on anything untoward , so we now have 2 weeks to pay back the £10k grant as the grant was agreed with a charge on the property regardless of owner, our solicitor who has practiced in this field for over 20 years has never heard of this scenario before i,m in need of some decent legal advice here of where and how to fight this if anyone can help ?????
OP where are you exactly. You make specific reference to Tewkesbury flooding yet you have quoted Wyre Forest District Council so are either Bewdley or Stourport on Severn? basically if the previous owners ever sell the grant must be repaid, This was never mentioned by the selling vendors and our solicitors searches and we paid extra and had two done never picked up on this, But along with the recent shocker letter from the district council says we have records that searches were carried out but no request was made of a legislation search, I have spoken in depth to my solicitor who says there was 100% no evidence that a legislation search was necessary or needed and no evidence from the previous searches picked up on anything untoward , so we now have 2 weeks to pay back the £10k grant as the grant was agreed with a charge on the property regardless of owner, our solicitor who has practiced in this field for over 20 years has never heard of this scenario before i,m in need of some decent legal advice here of where and how to fight this if anyone can help ?????
Surely this is a) not your debt b)the responsibility of those professional (Insured) bodies you paid to act on your behalf.
EW109 said:
Err -- I said most of this on page 3 back in 2017.
You did, but, alas, the OP doesn't seem to have followed up on your helpful advice because he (to be blunt rather imprudently) assumed that all was OK on the basis of an email saying that the vendor had sorted or would sort the issue. OP, the three law firms recommended by blue33 above are all excellent, but also in the upper bracket so far as fees go. A direct access barrister at 4-5 Gray's Inn Square would probably work out be cheaper. If you email Stephen Somerville there he can recommend you someone.
Guys, I do apologise for not adding this sooner but all of your help and time is very very much appreciated. I,m trying to digest all the advice along with packing up to move, Organising my early retirement, Dealing with a health problem and relocating abroad which is all happening this week,
Geeze i,m tired......
Geeze i,m tired......
Breadvan72 said:
EW109 said:
Err -- I said most of this on page 3 back in 2017.
You did, but, alas, the OP doesn't seem to have followed up on your helpful advice because he (to be blunt rather imprudently) assumed that all was OK on the basis of an email saying that the vendor had sorted or would sort the issue. OP, the three law firms recommended by blue33 above are all excellent, but also in the upper bracket so far as fees go. A direct access barrister at 4-5 Gray's Inn Square would probably work out be cheaper. If you email Stephen Somerville there he can recommend you someone.
turbo9111 said:
Guys, I do apologise for not adding this sooner but all of your help and time is very very much appreciated. I,m trying to digest all the advice along with packing up to move, Organising my early retirement, Dealing with a health problem and relocating abroad which is all happening this week,
Geeze i,m tired......
There's the answer - Just move abroad and let the buyers/Council fight it out Geeze i,m tired......
The basic situation seems to be that Wyre Forest District Council made a grant of £10,000 to the previous owners of the property to help them carry out flood defence work.
This grant was made in accordance with the Council's Private Sector Housing Assistance Policy 2006. Paragraph 16 of the Policy reads as follows:
16. REPAYMENT ON CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP
16.1 Decent Home Assistance, but not Disabled Facilities Grants, will be repayable on demand, on disposal of the property or part of it, in accordance with the provision of Sections 44 to 55 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. The financial assistance provided will be registered as a local charge on the property.
Basically, therefore, the £10,000 was repayable to the Council on the sale of the property. In order to protect itself the Council would – or should – have registered the liability as a local land charge in the Local Land Charges Register ("LLCR").
This has nothing to do with the Land Registry, and there would therefore be no mention of a local land charge in the Land Registry entries.
When a solicitor is acting in the purchase of a property it's standard practice to make a local search. This is a formal enquiry sent to the local authority and includes a request for a search of the LLCR. Assuming the charge had been properly registered by the Council then a formal search would have revealed this and the solicitor would have treated it in the same way as if there had been a mortgage registered against the property, i.e. he would have requested an undertaking from the seller's solicitor that the charge would be repaid in full on completion of the sale.
Quite clearly, this did not happen, and there are several possible reasons why.
The first is that the local authority forgot to register the land charge in the LLCR. If so, they cannot claim repayment from turbo, though they can still reclaim payment from the seller. This seems very unlikely in the light of the letter from the Council.
It seems from turbo's original comments and from the Council’s letter that his solicitor did not submit a formal search to the Council, but instead employed a “search agent“ to carry out a personal search.
This has been common practice for many years, and the personal search industry arose as a result of very long delays by councils in processing searches.
Personal searches must always include an inspection of the LLCR and the search agent must report any entries. However, mistakes do happen, and it’s possible that the search agent in this case didn’t notice the land charge. If so, they would almost certainly be liable in negligence to turbo for financial loss sustained as a result.
Surprisingly, I actually think this may be the most likely answer. The reason I say this is that in the original letter from the Council to turbo they say,
“... when the property was being considered for purchase by yourselves a personal search company was employed. They did not pay for or request details of what outstanding debts were applicable under the above legislation.”
Unfortunately, the letter’s chopped off, so we don’t know what “the above legislation” is, but it’s probably the 1996 Act. But the key point is that there would have been a fee payable to inspect the LLCR - £25.50 at present in Wyre Forest – and it seems clear that the search agent didn’t pay the fee, perhaps to save money.
If they didn’t pay the fee then they can’t have inspected the LLCR, in which case the charge wouldn’t have shown up on the local search.
If this is what happened, then it’s a pretty clear case of negligence on the part of the search agent. They would presumably carry PI insurance, so it should have been a straightforward claim against them.
This aspect of the matter should be fairly easy to resolve. All turbo needs to do is to obtain a copy of the search carried out when he bought the property. This will clarify whether or not the land charge was disclosed in the search.
What concerns me, however, is that this is a question which his solicitor must have looked into immediately the land charge was discovered. He must, therefore, know exactly what the situation is, and I can’t understand why turbo has been left so completely in the dark. The lack of information raises a suspicion that the solicitor is hiding something.
It may be, for example, that he failed to notice that the search didn’t include a search of the LLC, or perhaps the search agent’s gone bust and didn’t carry any PI insurance. In either case the solicitor himself may well be liable to turbo, and it may be that he’s concealing this, in the hope he can resolve it without turbo ever finding out and making a claim against him.
In the short term the retention solution will work, but turbo needs to ask his solicitor to give him a full written report regarding the matter. If the solicitor has been in the wrong he can’t very well continue to conceal that in the context of such a report. If he hasn’t, then at least turbo will have a proper explanation.
Finally, turbo would also probably have a good claim against the seller, as the seller was under a legal duty to disclose the existence of this debt, even if it hadn’t been registered in the LLCR. The relevant case is Rignall Developments Ltd –v- Halil [1987] 3 WLR 394.
Whatever the outcome, turbo should not be left out of pocket, but I hope he comes back and tells us what really happened, as it’s a fascinating detective story!
This grant was made in accordance with the Council's Private Sector Housing Assistance Policy 2006. Paragraph 16 of the Policy reads as follows:
16. REPAYMENT ON CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP
16.1 Decent Home Assistance, but not Disabled Facilities Grants, will be repayable on demand, on disposal of the property or part of it, in accordance with the provision of Sections 44 to 55 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. The financial assistance provided will be registered as a local charge on the property.
Basically, therefore, the £10,000 was repayable to the Council on the sale of the property. In order to protect itself the Council would – or should – have registered the liability as a local land charge in the Local Land Charges Register ("LLCR").
This has nothing to do with the Land Registry, and there would therefore be no mention of a local land charge in the Land Registry entries.
When a solicitor is acting in the purchase of a property it's standard practice to make a local search. This is a formal enquiry sent to the local authority and includes a request for a search of the LLCR. Assuming the charge had been properly registered by the Council then a formal search would have revealed this and the solicitor would have treated it in the same way as if there had been a mortgage registered against the property, i.e. he would have requested an undertaking from the seller's solicitor that the charge would be repaid in full on completion of the sale.
Quite clearly, this did not happen, and there are several possible reasons why.
The first is that the local authority forgot to register the land charge in the LLCR. If so, they cannot claim repayment from turbo, though they can still reclaim payment from the seller. This seems very unlikely in the light of the letter from the Council.
It seems from turbo's original comments and from the Council’s letter that his solicitor did not submit a formal search to the Council, but instead employed a “search agent“ to carry out a personal search.
This has been common practice for many years, and the personal search industry arose as a result of very long delays by councils in processing searches.
Personal searches must always include an inspection of the LLCR and the search agent must report any entries. However, mistakes do happen, and it’s possible that the search agent in this case didn’t notice the land charge. If so, they would almost certainly be liable in negligence to turbo for financial loss sustained as a result.
Surprisingly, I actually think this may be the most likely answer. The reason I say this is that in the original letter from the Council to turbo they say,
“... when the property was being considered for purchase by yourselves a personal search company was employed. They did not pay for or request details of what outstanding debts were applicable under the above legislation.”
Unfortunately, the letter’s chopped off, so we don’t know what “the above legislation” is, but it’s probably the 1996 Act. But the key point is that there would have been a fee payable to inspect the LLCR - £25.50 at present in Wyre Forest – and it seems clear that the search agent didn’t pay the fee, perhaps to save money.
If they didn’t pay the fee then they can’t have inspected the LLCR, in which case the charge wouldn’t have shown up on the local search.
If this is what happened, then it’s a pretty clear case of negligence on the part of the search agent. They would presumably carry PI insurance, so it should have been a straightforward claim against them.
This aspect of the matter should be fairly easy to resolve. All turbo needs to do is to obtain a copy of the search carried out when he bought the property. This will clarify whether or not the land charge was disclosed in the search.
What concerns me, however, is that this is a question which his solicitor must have looked into immediately the land charge was discovered. He must, therefore, know exactly what the situation is, and I can’t understand why turbo has been left so completely in the dark. The lack of information raises a suspicion that the solicitor is hiding something.
It may be, for example, that he failed to notice that the search didn’t include a search of the LLC, or perhaps the search agent’s gone bust and didn’t carry any PI insurance. In either case the solicitor himself may well be liable to turbo, and it may be that he’s concealing this, in the hope he can resolve it without turbo ever finding out and making a claim against him.
In the short term the retention solution will work, but turbo needs to ask his solicitor to give him a full written report regarding the matter. If the solicitor has been in the wrong he can’t very well continue to conceal that in the context of such a report. If he hasn’t, then at least turbo will have a proper explanation.
Finally, turbo would also probably have a good claim against the seller, as the seller was under a legal duty to disclose the existence of this debt, even if it hadn’t been registered in the LLCR. The relevant case is Rignall Developments Ltd –v- Halil [1987] 3 WLR 394.
Whatever the outcome, turbo should not be left out of pocket, but I hope he comes back and tells us what really happened, as it’s a fascinating detective story!
Pro Bono said:
The basic situation seems to be that Wyre Forest District Council made a grant of £10,000 to the previous owners of the property to help them carry out flood defence work.
This grant was made in accordance with the Council's Private Sector Housing Assistance Policy 2006. Paragraph 16 of the Policy reads as follows:
16. REPAYMENT ON CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP
16.1 Decent Home Assistance, but not Disabled Facilities Grants, will be repayable on demand, on disposal of the property or part of it, in accordance with the provision of Sections 44 to 55 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. The financial assistance provided will be registered as a local charge on the property.
Basically, therefore, the £10,000 was repayable to the Council on the sale of the property. In order to protect itself the Council would – or should – have registered the liability as a local land charge in the Local Land Charges Register ("LLCR").
This has nothing to do with the Land Registry, and there would therefore be no mention of a local land charge in the Land Registry entries.
When a solicitor is acting in the purchase of a property it's standard practice to make a local search. This is a formal enquiry sent to the local authority and includes a request for a search of the LLCR. Assuming the charge had been properly registered by the Council then a formal search would have revealed this and the solicitor would have treated it in the same way as if there had been a mortgage registered against the property, i.e. he would have requested an undertaking from the seller's solicitor that the charge would be repaid in full on completion of the sale.
Quite clearly, this did not happen, and there are several possible reasons why.
The first is that the local authority forgot to register the land charge in the LLCR. If so, they cannot claim repayment from turbo, though they can still reclaim payment from the seller. This seems very unlikely in the light of the letter from the Council.
It seems from turbo's original comments and from the Council’s letter that his solicitor did not submit a formal search to the Council, but instead employed a “search agent“ to carry out a personal search.
This has been common practice for many years, and the personal search industry arose as a result of very long delays by councils in processing searches.
Personal searches must always include an inspection of the LLCR and the search agent must report any entries. However, mistakes do happen, and it’s possible that the search agent in this case didn’t notice the land charge. If so, they would almost certainly be liable in negligence to turbo for financial loss sustained as a result.
Surprisingly, I actually think this may be the most likely answer. The reason I say this is that in the original letter from the Council to turbo they say,
“... when the property was being considered for purchase by yourselves a personal search company was employed. They did not pay for or request details of what outstanding debts were applicable under the above legislation.”
Unfortunately, the letter’s chopped off, so we don’t know what “the above legislation” is, but it’s probably the 1996 Act. But the key point is that there would have been a fee payable to inspect the LLCR - £25.50 at present in Wyre Forest – and it seems clear that the search agent didn’t pay the fee, perhaps to save money.
If they didn’t pay the fee then they can’t have inspected the LLCR, in which case the charge wouldn’t have shown up on the local search.
If this is what happened, then it’s a pretty clear case of negligence on the part of the search agent. They would presumably carry PI insurance, so it should have been a straightforward claim against them.
This aspect of the matter should be fairly easy to resolve. All turbo needs to do is to obtain a copy of the search carried out when he bought the property. This will clarify whether or not the land charge was disclosed in the search.
What concerns me, however, is that this is a question which his solicitor must have looked into immediately the land charge was discovered. He must, therefore, know exactly what the situation is, and I can’t understand why turbo has been left so completely in the dark. The lack of information raises a suspicion that the solicitor is hiding something.
It may be, for example, that he failed to notice that the search didn’t include a search of the LLC, or perhaps the search agent’s gone bust and didn’t carry any PI insurance. In either case the solicitor himself may well be liable to turbo, and it may be that he’s concealing this, in the hope he can resolve it without turbo ever finding out and making a claim against him.
In the short term the retention solution will work, but turbo needs to ask his solicitor to give him a full written report regarding the matter. If the solicitor has been in the wrong he can’t very well continue to conceal that in the context of such a report. If he hasn’t, then at least turbo will have a proper explanation.
Finally, turbo would also probably have a good claim against the seller, as the seller was under a legal duty to disclose the existence of this debt, even if it hadn’t been registered in the LLCR. The relevant case is Rignall Developments Ltd –v- Halil [1987] 3 WLR 394.
Whatever the outcome, turbo should not be left out of pocket, but I hope he comes back and tells us what really happened, as it’s a fascinating detective story!
Thank you for the advice,This grant was made in accordance with the Council's Private Sector Housing Assistance Policy 2006. Paragraph 16 of the Policy reads as follows:
16. REPAYMENT ON CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP
16.1 Decent Home Assistance, but not Disabled Facilities Grants, will be repayable on demand, on disposal of the property or part of it, in accordance with the provision of Sections 44 to 55 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. The financial assistance provided will be registered as a local charge on the property.
Basically, therefore, the £10,000 was repayable to the Council on the sale of the property. In order to protect itself the Council would – or should – have registered the liability as a local land charge in the Local Land Charges Register ("LLCR").
This has nothing to do with the Land Registry, and there would therefore be no mention of a local land charge in the Land Registry entries.
When a solicitor is acting in the purchase of a property it's standard practice to make a local search. This is a formal enquiry sent to the local authority and includes a request for a search of the LLCR. Assuming the charge had been properly registered by the Council then a formal search would have revealed this and the solicitor would have treated it in the same way as if there had been a mortgage registered against the property, i.e. he would have requested an undertaking from the seller's solicitor that the charge would be repaid in full on completion of the sale.
Quite clearly, this did not happen, and there are several possible reasons why.
The first is that the local authority forgot to register the land charge in the LLCR. If so, they cannot claim repayment from turbo, though they can still reclaim payment from the seller. This seems very unlikely in the light of the letter from the Council.
It seems from turbo's original comments and from the Council’s letter that his solicitor did not submit a formal search to the Council, but instead employed a “search agent“ to carry out a personal search.
This has been common practice for many years, and the personal search industry arose as a result of very long delays by councils in processing searches.
Personal searches must always include an inspection of the LLCR and the search agent must report any entries. However, mistakes do happen, and it’s possible that the search agent in this case didn’t notice the land charge. If so, they would almost certainly be liable in negligence to turbo for financial loss sustained as a result.
Surprisingly, I actually think this may be the most likely answer. The reason I say this is that in the original letter from the Council to turbo they say,
“... when the property was being considered for purchase by yourselves a personal search company was employed. They did not pay for or request details of what outstanding debts were applicable under the above legislation.”
Unfortunately, the letter’s chopped off, so we don’t know what “the above legislation” is, but it’s probably the 1996 Act. But the key point is that there would have been a fee payable to inspect the LLCR - £25.50 at present in Wyre Forest – and it seems clear that the search agent didn’t pay the fee, perhaps to save money.
If they didn’t pay the fee then they can’t have inspected the LLCR, in which case the charge wouldn’t have shown up on the local search.
If this is what happened, then it’s a pretty clear case of negligence on the part of the search agent. They would presumably carry PI insurance, so it should have been a straightforward claim against them.
This aspect of the matter should be fairly easy to resolve. All turbo needs to do is to obtain a copy of the search carried out when he bought the property. This will clarify whether or not the land charge was disclosed in the search.
What concerns me, however, is that this is a question which his solicitor must have looked into immediately the land charge was discovered. He must, therefore, know exactly what the situation is, and I can’t understand why turbo has been left so completely in the dark. The lack of information raises a suspicion that the solicitor is hiding something.
It may be, for example, that he failed to notice that the search didn’t include a search of the LLC, or perhaps the search agent’s gone bust and didn’t carry any PI insurance. In either case the solicitor himself may well be liable to turbo, and it may be that he’s concealing this, in the hope he can resolve it without turbo ever finding out and making a claim against him.
In the short term the retention solution will work, but turbo needs to ask his solicitor to give him a full written report regarding the matter. If the solicitor has been in the wrong he can’t very well continue to conceal that in the context of such a report. If he hasn’t, then at least turbo will have a proper explanation.
Finally, turbo would also probably have a good claim against the seller, as the seller was under a legal duty to disclose the existence of this debt, even if it hadn’t been registered in the LLCR. The relevant case is Rignall Developments Ltd –v- Halil [1987] 3 WLR 394.
Whatever the outcome, turbo should not be left out of pocket, but I hope he comes back and tells us what really happened, as it’s a fascinating detective story!
As i still have all the original paperwork i have looked back through it and my solicitor charged me for following in 2017,
ALL NECASARY SEARCHES AND ENQUIRIES ,
CHECKING SELLERS HAVE GOOD TITLE,
I presume this would include the LLCR search but it very much looks like it didn't and at this moment the sale is going ahead,
I,m awaiting correspondence/advice from my solicitor as to which way this will go,
Thanks
It appears that your solicitor may have a conflict of interest, as he or she, or an agent retained by him or her, may possibly have made a negligent error. A lawyer who becomes aware of this is supposed to inform the client and recommend that the client seeks independent advice (and at the same time notify the lawyer's professional indemnity insurer of a possible claim). I think that it might be a good idea to talk to another lawyer soon.
Breadvan72 said:
It appears that your solicitor may have a conflict of interest, as he or she, or an agent retained by him or her, may possibly have made a negligent error. A lawyer who becomes aware of this is supposed to inform the client and recommend that the client seeks independent advice (and at the same time notify the lawyer's professional indemnity insurer of a possible claim). I think that it might be a good idea to talk to another lawyer soon.
Thanks BV,I will take your advice,
Never having done anything like this before but in yours or anyones opinion would i be in a position to cover costs in recovering the £10k or will i end up paying £9999.00 to recover £10k ?,
In civil claims for damages of that scale, costs would usually follow the event. If the alleged negligence is something like not carrying out a search that is usually carried out, and it can be shown that the search was not in fact carried out, then the claim is usually a slam dunker, and will be settled by the insurer of the professional concerned. The settlement will usually include an amount for the claimant's costs.
Some negligence claims against lawyers include matters of professional judgment, and there negligence may be hard to prove. Other claims include things like missing a deadline, failing to file a document, or failing to check something. Those types of claims tend to be easier to prove.
Some negligence claims against lawyers include matters of professional judgment, and there negligence may be hard to prove. Other claims include things like missing a deadline, failing to file a document, or failing to check something. Those types of claims tend to be easier to prove.
turbo9111 said:
Never having done anything like this before but in yours or anyones opinion would i be in a position to cover costs in recovering the £10k or will i end up paying £9999.00 to recover £10k ?,
One potential difficulty is that a claim for £10k would normally be allocated to the County Court small claims track, where the general rule is that you can't recover costs, even if you win. Although you could argue that the nature of the claim makes it unsuitable for the SCT there's no guarantee that argument would succeed. Consequently, if you employ solicitors to pursue the claim it's possible that you might have to pay them out of any monies recovered. In practical terms your claim may well exceed £10k, as you will obviously have incurred various costs as a result of the default. However, even if the claim does exceed £10k it would still probably be allocated to the fast track, where although you can recover some of your costs the actual amount you can recover is fairly limited. If you're using an expensive firm, like those mentioned, there's likely to be a big discrepancy between their charges and what you can actually recover, leaving you to make up the difference.
An alternative would be to make a complaint to the the Legal Services Ombudsman - https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/ You'd need to go through the formal complaints procedure with the firm before doing so, and, of course, you'd need to establish that you actually had the basis for a complaint in the first place, hence the need for the written report I mentioned.
The two main advantages of using LeO is that (1) it costs nothing; and (2) they can award up to £50k in compensation.
Hi everyone,
A update to what’s happened so far, The house sale went through and we had to part with the £10k to the council to lift the charge and let the sale proceed, We are now living in sunny Spain and with plenty of time on my hands i dug out all the old relevant paperwork/correspondence and found a old email with a link attached from my solicitor this link had original search report and to my surprise the charge on the property was uncovered back in 2017, My solicitor failed to recognise or act on it or bring it to our attention, Also when it first came to light the council who had been in touch with the previous owners and made a agreement with them to pay it back failed to collect the debt from them, So fast forward onto where we are today i have made a complaint to my solicitor through there complaints procedure and i have just heard back that they are accepting no liability at present but have referred it to there indemnity insurance company, So this is our first step in the right direction i have also written to the council and asked why they had never recovered the debt from the previous owner along with a few other questions and they are now referring it there legal department,
So at last its looking like i may get to the bottom of all this and recover my hard earned £10k......
A update to what’s happened so far, The house sale went through and we had to part with the £10k to the council to lift the charge and let the sale proceed, We are now living in sunny Spain and with plenty of time on my hands i dug out all the old relevant paperwork/correspondence and found a old email with a link attached from my solicitor this link had original search report and to my surprise the charge on the property was uncovered back in 2017, My solicitor failed to recognise or act on it or bring it to our attention, Also when it first came to light the council who had been in touch with the previous owners and made a agreement with them to pay it back failed to collect the debt from them, So fast forward onto where we are today i have made a complaint to my solicitor through there complaints procedure and i have just heard back that they are accepting no liability at present but have referred it to there indemnity insurance company, So this is our first step in the right direction i have also written to the council and asked why they had never recovered the debt from the previous owner along with a few other questions and they are now referring it there legal department,
So at last its looking like i may get to the bottom of all this and recover my hard earned £10k......
turbo9111 said:
Hi everyone,
A update to what’s happened so far, The house sale went through and we had to part with the £10k to the council to lift the charge and let the sale proceed, We are now living in sunny Spain and with plenty of time on my hands i dug out all the old relevant paperwork/correspondence and found a old email with a link attached from my solicitor this link had original search report and to my surprise the charge on the property was uncovered back in 2017, My solicitor failed to recognise or act on it or bring it to our attention, Also when it first came to light the council who had been in touch with the previous owners and made a agreement with them to pay it back failed to collect the debt from them, So fast forward onto where we are today i have made a complaint to my solicitor through there complaints procedure and i have just heard back that they are accepting no liability at present but have referred it to there indemnity insurance company, So this is our first step in the right direction i have also written to the council and asked why they had never recovered the debt from the previous owner along with a few other questions and they are now referring it there legal department,
So at last its looking like i may get to the bottom of all this and recover my hard earned £10k......
Thanks for the update. I’ll follow with interest.A update to what’s happened so far, The house sale went through and we had to part with the £10k to the council to lift the charge and let the sale proceed, We are now living in sunny Spain and with plenty of time on my hands i dug out all the old relevant paperwork/correspondence and found a old email with a link attached from my solicitor this link had original search report and to my surprise the charge on the property was uncovered back in 2017, My solicitor failed to recognise or act on it or bring it to our attention, Also when it first came to light the council who had been in touch with the previous owners and made a agreement with them to pay it back failed to collect the debt from them, So fast forward onto where we are today i have made a complaint to my solicitor through there complaints procedure and i have just heard back that they are accepting no liability at present but have referred it to there indemnity insurance company, So this is our first step in the right direction i have also written to the council and asked why they had never recovered the debt from the previous owner along with a few other questions and they are now referring it there legal department,
So at last its looking like i may get to the bottom of all this and recover my hard earned £10k......
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