Deed of House in another persons name!

[tcl]

Hi there,
My sister and I are trying to get our home house transferred into our names after the death of my parents. We have owned the house for 35 years and have lived there uninterrupted during this period. My parents purchased the property off my uncle. The deal was carried out in a solicitor’s office as per usual. The solicitor that dealt with the property transfer has since passed away.

In order to get the house in our names we had to locate the deeds that my parents had for the house and have them transferred in our names. My solicitor, dealing with our case, states that he did not receive any deed for our house when he took over the other deceased solicitors practice. My solicitor then went to the Land Registry office to get a copy of the deeds that would have been lodged with them on transfer of property ownerships. It materialises that the deed of our house is registered to somebody else Mr X. Mr X has also passed away.

Mr Y is the per. rep. to Mr X’s estate (i.e. the personal representative of the will of Mr X is the person responsible for the will). Mr Y is now looking for €12k to sign a deed accent, which would give us a clear title in our name even though our land was never considered in the will of Mr X (i.e. Mr X never thought he owned that land as there had been numerous change of ownerships for the house). The amount of 12k comes from the legal battle over the estate of Mr X. My solicitor is acting for both Mr X and I.

This house is rightfully ours and should be a straightforward transfer of name change from my mothers name to ours only for the original solicitors negligence (i.e. not lodging the deed with the Land Registry).
I am considering legal action against Mr Y to finally transfer the house into our name. I have gone to another solicitor for independent advice and he thinks I should go to court with the case.

Has anybody any experience with such a case?
Is there a conflict interest on behalf of the solicitor acting for 2 sides of the same case?

 

[sheena1]

Personally I would move Solicitors. Should the solicitor not be responsible for all the existing files if he took over the other solicitors pracitce? I would go with the solicitor who you went to for independent legal advice. At leat you can be certain that he would be acting solely in your best interests. That amount of money is crazy and sounds to me like the solicitor wants to make sure his fees for the dispute over the estate are discharged....

 

[mf1]

"My parents purchased the property off my uncle."

"It materialises that the deed of our house is registered to somebody else Mr X. "

Leaving aside the solicitors for the moment - can you explain how if your parents bought the place from your uncle either (a) it was at that stage registered in Mr. X's name or (b) subsequently became registered in Mr. X's name.

That has me confused

mf

 

[tcl]

thanks for your response sheena1
that is exactlly what I think...I really think the solicitor wants to be paid for the other dispute like you say - if I paid then both of them would be happy - >the client - Mr Y would have his fee paid and the solicitor would paid his 12K which I dont think he is going to get from the client in question..
If I moved solicitor could it be a case that he would make things hard for me? could he overcharge for work already done? I saw on another post that the is a place that you can check this anyway

I am wondering if it does go to court how it would be viewed?

 

[tcl]

"My parents purchased the property off my uncle."

"It materialises that the deed of our house is registered to somebody else Mr X. "

Leaving aside the solicitors for the moment - can you explain how if your parents bought the place from your uncle either (a) it was at that stage registered in Mr. X's name or (b) subsequently became registered in Mr. X's name.

That has me confused

mf

Thanks mf1
The story goes that the house ownership goes something like this
Mr X
Owner 1
Owner 2
MyUncle
My Parents

By nobody is that sure if it belonged to MrX..it must have had because his name is registered in the Land Registry

 

[tcl]

My Questions are:
Has anyone any experience with a similar case?

Is there any advantage of going to court with it?

 

[terrysgirl33]

I'm not an expert by any means, but we had a similar situation in our family. Relative had a house and a field, sold off the field as a site to another person. When the solicitor handled this sale, he put ALL of the land into the other persons name. When the relative died, the house couldn't be sold as the relative owned the house, but the land it was on belonged to the other person. This took about 12 months to sort out, but it didn't have to go to court or anything, as the site had been surveyed (this happened about 7 years after the site had been sold), the site had clearly not been meant to include the older house and land, and it was an error on the solicitors part that had to be put right. Like I said, I don't remember the details of sorting it out, but if the house has been clearly sold on a number of times, it's a case of getting the registration of the deeds correct, not a court case. If you get onto the land registry they may be able to help, I think they were quite helpfull in the family case...

 

[liteweight]

I'd get on to the Land Registry. You should also get a good independent solicitor. What I don't understand is that there have been 3 owners since the time of Mr.X....did none have deeds in their name??

 

[tcl]

yes agreed...I have been to an independent solicitor and got a barrister to review the case...They recommended that I pay what I would as if MrX was not there at all - i.e the probate fee of apprx 6k..I have sent a letter to the solicitor handling the case(i.e. not the independent one) and I am waiting to hear back...

I have not checked if the owners before this have any deeds - I know my uncle left his with the solicitor...however even if there was deeds is it not the whats at the Land Registry that counts?

 

[tcl]

I'm not an expert by any means, but we had a similar situation in our family. Relative had a house and a field, sold off the field as a site to another person. When the solicitor handled this sale, he put ALL of the land into the other persons name. When the relative died, the house couldn't be sold as the relative owned the house, but the land it was on belonged to the other person. This took about 12 months to sort out, but it didn't have to go to court or anything, as the site had been surveyed (this happened about 7 years after the site had been sold), the site had clearly not been meant to include the older house and land, and it was an error on the solicitors part that had to be put right. Like I said, I don't remember the details of sorting it out, but if the house has been clearly sold on a number of times, it's a case of getting the registration of the deeds correct, not a court case. If you get onto the land registry they may be able to help, I think they were quite helpfull in the family case...

Thanks for your help - I guess my situation is very similar except the solicitor has since passed away...I have meant to go to the LandRegistry office and see what they say however I wanted to put a post on this site first...