Residential Property

We recently acted for a client purchasing a rural property with the use of mortgage finance. Upon our usual investigations we discovered that the sellers had “tapped” into the public sewage system for foul drainage without informing the water company. In fact the sellers had not paid for the use of foul drainage, so far as we could tell, during their occupation of the property.

Additionally the right of access to the property stopped short of the curtilage meaning that access over a small part of the drive was unauthorised. Further investigation of the ownership of the drive revealed that the drive was not registered to a particular owner, so it was not possible to rectify the problem by approaching the owner directly.

Lastly, an enforcement notice had been served on the sellers by the planning office, as a carport had been erected in breach of planning permission.

Despite how comfortable our client feels with these situations as we act for the lender in most cases we are obliged to rectify these kind of difficulties so that the lender can rest assured that they have good security for their mortgage. Indeed to sign-off on the certificate of title required to obtain the mortgage funds means that we have carried out all necessary investigations and solved all problems that we have unearthed.

In this particular case we had to approach the water company to ensure that they had knowledge of the connection. They agreed to bill the sellers for one year’s usage and transfer the account into our client’s names on completion.

The access was rectified by obtaining an indemnity insurance policy, which lasts in perpetuity and can be handed over to a buyer in the future.

Finally we approached the lender to confirm that if the car port had been demolished they were still happy to lend the funds on the remaining property. Happily they were and we exchanged contracts in a timely fashion.”