Grandparents house repossessed - any legal minds around please?

[onemorecakeplease]

I'm not even sure that's the right title really

Mid 90s my aunt persuaded my gps to remortgage their house and used the money to pay off an outstanding business loan. Her business was struggling and before the first mortgage payment was due, the business was made bankrupt.

Gps bank knew what the funds were being used for and that neither of them had an income beyond pension.
They were lent £130k in 1993.

The bank allowed my gps to stay in the house until they died and froze the interest I believe.

No payments were ever made to the mortgage by my aunt or gps as nobody could afford to.

I've recently found out about this and am just so surprised the bank would lend money to pay the debts of a clearly failing business (was hundreds of thousands in debt)
And that they would lend the money to my gps who would have not been able to pay it back.

Have I cause to complain and ask the bank to explain where it's duty of care to its customers went that day? And if so, how do I go about it after all this time

I have statements and account numbers etc so that's a good start I suppose.

Thanks for reading - I'll try to answer any qs I can.

GPS were never involved in the business other than this loan.

I don't think the worst of you but I do wonder why with all these living children you are taking such an interest , particularly as it would appear that your granny is living quite happily in the house . What peace of mind does she actually need prior to the point where she needs to move, which hopefully she won't ever need to do . If it was bothering granny that much surely she would have looked into it , or asked somebody else to look into it years ago / when her husband passed etc .

Looking at the link it's only if the house sold from 2000? I'd ring them on Monday the staff there are usually very helpful (since you're talking about a mortgage in 1993 then the house clearly hasn't sold since 2000)

Photo attached

OP
As a PP said you need to find out if there is a charge on the property. I suspect there is. A search can be done via the Land Registry for a small fee.

link here to Land Registry

Op, it could be the property is unregistered, or it could be a database failed match because the property once had a slightly different name or address. You can submit a form for them to do a search of the index map.

eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/www/wps/portal/!ut/p/b0/04_Sj9CPykssy0xPLMnMz0vMAfGjzOKNjSxMDA1NjDwsjM3MDTxN3dyNDUNMjQ2cDfSDU_P0C7IdFQHOb7rP/

sorry X posted.

Thanks again mychild

Will do that on Monday.

So it's ok for me to search for the charge even tho it's not my property?!

Ok bluntness will try that

Mychild I don't disagree at all - they were completely off their rockers to agree to this.
Especially as aunt wasn't their only child and they didn't ask/tell any of the others.
I suspect that most of them still don't know. Mainly abroad or in different countries.
Aunt and my mum lived very close so that's why we know about it.

I just can't fathom why they would do it. I can only think that aunt must have begged them or something. Said she was going to lose her business or her home if they didn't help maybe.

Who knows.

You do understand that you are highly unlikely to win any kind of case re undue influence don't you ?

I would hate to be giving you an idea that you might win something out of this

Absolutely. Thank you
I've realised it's not going to happen so I won't waste my time
But I do think we should know if the bank owns the whole thing.
If only to explain it to my grandma who clearly has no idea and has been talking about selling up and buying a wee retirement home.

Damn I don't have a chequebook.

Can you pay online - it says something about a portal but I'm on my mobile and it's so small I can't read the whole thing!

OP I am wondering if you would find any useful advice here.
http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/i-think-ive-been-mis-sold-my-mortgage-what-can-i-do

if the building society begins with a G I have a feeling they were taken to task by the financial Ombudsman for mis-selling mortgages in the 90's but I can't find any mention of it by googling.

If you don't have a cheque book you can get a postal order from the post office and send that.

So if the land registry finds a record and it comes back with a charge, what info will be on there?

Will it say that the bank owns 100% of the property or will it just say the name of the bank etc

Sorry this is all new to me!

It depends.

There is examples on the site. Yes it will tell you who owns it and who has a charge on it, as well any restrictions to sell on it i.e. Mortgage etc

Thanks will get on that Monday

as far as i know - the banks claim on the property (if it is there) will come before the sharing out by the 7 childrem

it would be (say) 400 for the house, -130 = 270 and thats what would be divided by the 7 (thats if no other charges which there would be)

Thanks Ann
Though it sounds like from what I've learnt tonight that the bank takes the house and there is nothing left.

This is actually very interesting, I would really like to find out the outcome

Bank lent , probably without knowing the ultimate purpose of releasing funds, secured against the value of the house ( which would have increased in time too) . Have they made interest payments at all? Were they sold an endowment policy or other vehicle to pay off the balance after 25 years? If they acted in spite of independent advice it makes it trickier to prove it was a missold product. Is there equity in the property now, could it be sold and the capital used to buy/rent a smaller property to live in?

I think you might have a case against the bank depending on the details. These sorts of loans were made in the 90s as a way of improving the bank's position with no benefit to the borrower and as such there has been a lot of, generally, out of court settlement. The key facts are typically that a business overdraft is replaced by a loan secured on property. This improves the bank's position as when the business becomes insolvent they are a secured rather than unsecured creditor and thus avoid taking a write off. This was all perfectly legal so you can't complain about that but you might strike lucky with a goodwill settlement. This is assuming that your aunt, or her business, was the borrower and the loan was used to repay existing unsecured bank borrowing. Your grandparents would be involved in that their house was pledged as security but they were not the borrower and not expected to make repayments. If you want to follow this up you need to talk to your aunt as she will need to make the complaint. There are organisations that will help I think, if this is the case. Try something like BullyBanks - not sure of the exact name but google will probably help. But it really depends on the facts of the case - and it won't be helped by the fact your grandparents chose to ignore legal advice.

I will update as I go along no problem.

We would like gma to sell the house, pay off the debt and buy a smaller place. But nearly everyone on this thread believes she can't do that as she no longer owns the house.

Contacting the land registry on Monday to see what charge the bank holds over the house.

No payments have ever been made, no.

I don't think grandparents were ever supposed to pay off the loan, the business was. And I agree that it was to replace unsecured debt yes. But it wasn't even with the same bank which is what I find odd. It went to Barclays say from the building society.

I just can't see why the bank would have taken that risk. Although I suppose it wasn't much of a risk to them was it, they have the house.