Hi

[LadyKay]

In 2006 my husband & I took out a loan secured against our property. The loan was paid off within 5 years, as agreed, no late payments or any problems. However, we are now in the process of selling the property & the company we took the loan out with is still listed on the land registry. We have no paperwork showing the loan was paid off & the loan company went bust shortly after we had paid the loan. The company who bought the assests for the loan company has also now disolved & is no longer in business.

Our solicitor doesn’t know what to do & the sale of our house is at risk. We had no idea the loan company had not removed themselves (?) from the land registry for the property until a couple of days ago & it’s been a nightmare trying to chase up administrators of the loan company, which are only leading to dead ends.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[R0b]

Hello

When a company is dissolved and there are outstanding assets or charges or other benefits, they automatically pass to the Crown. This is known as Bona Vacantia.

The Treasury Solicitor is charged with dealing of assets, or other benefits of a dissolved company who will collect / repay outstanding sums including interest. Your solicitor should be corresponding with the Treasury Solicitor (click here for more info on this) in this case but I wouldn't hedge any bets on this being resolved any time soon.

The other difficulty is that you have no paperwork at all which if I am honest is a bit sloppy on your part especially when it is something as important as a secured loan. I suppose it is a learning curve and know never to rely on lenders in getting the charge removed and instead you should be pro-active next time.

I presume you set up a direct debit for the monies to come out on a monthly basis and if so, are you still banking with the same bank account? You could request copies of statements for those periods which should evidence you paying off the loan to the company at the time (the link above actually says you should include this type of information as well as others).

If you have absolutely nothing to show as evidence of the repayments made then I very much doubt you will stand much of a chance of getting the charge removed unless you either repay it, or the Treasury Solicitor is feeling generous and accepts what you are saying at face value.