Fraudulent misrepresentation house sale help

[Guest]

Hi, I hope someone can help with some advice please, I’ll try and keep it simple ! We brought a house for £300,000, the vendor had no mortgage and said they were buying a house next door to their daughters house. They took the full amount, cash, however lied in their contracts as the house had issues and fraudulently sold us the house so we are trying to recind (this came to light 6 months later), we tried to claim on house legal insurance - their new house (we have emails confirming and also know it has had major renovations and extensions to that house and also to the daughters next door since the sale), is not in their name, their daughter brought it cash and they are living in it. *The legal insurer has refused cover as the ‘house’ asset is not in their name, they are ignoring the cash and the fact they are having a financial benefit from living in the house. *We have a 100 % provable case of fraud and they have ‘stolen’ everything we had just about as the house is worth over £120,000 less than we paid for it .... we are battling the insurer to get cover put back in place as we cannot afford the legal fees, we have a few thousand in savings but that’s all we have. *Any ideas for enforceable routes seeing as they have taken our money and in effect laundered it into the two houses and knew what they were doing ? the insurer need over 51% chance of recovery and are refusing saying there’s no guarantee of recovery but they are ignoring the asset and the house they are living in as a benefit *.. We are stuck and have had knock back after knock back ... in law, what can we do ? Any advice at all would be appreciated we are at our wits end with it*

[Guest]

I guess you did not have a survey before purchase ?. You would not have bought a car for that amount of money before having a report, I wish you luck as I can see its an uphill struggle.

[des8]

It would be helpful to keep to the one thread.
Did you follow any of the advice in your earlier thread?*https://legalbeagles.info/forums/for...hat-to-do-next

[Guest]

Hi both, thanks for replying.. *we had a survey paid for separate through true mortgage company and they missed a subsidence crack, because the contract isn’t direct we can’t sue them under the insurance even though there’s case law... sorry I should have continued the other thread .. yes put it all to insurer and they are refusing cover still and refusing to say the percentage for recovery or be transparent with us about recovery methods or agree it needs a barristers opinion, we got the reply again late last week so we are stuck again even though all of the above we are not getting anywhere with them.. we need to know if the house becomes the asset if it’s fraud as we think they are beneficial owners*

[Guest]

We haven’t got the funds to pay a solictor ourselves :-( we can pay the Barrister for the opinion though, Coplus are saying they need reasonable prospects of success but we know it’s over 51% and we pointed out what you said ... from what we see their daughter brought the house and they have renovated it with the cash from ours and live in it, the case is clear cut we paid for another solicitor opinion and they said it’s clear fraud, Coplus are ignoring the proceeds of crime etc they said they spoke to their recovery expert last week and there is no guarantee of recovery*

[Guest]

We’ve spent the last few months arguing with them we went to the compliance director in the end, and we’ve spent the time going through everything with a tooth comb- we now have a full file and timeline chronology that we did that reads like a book it shows it crystal clear*

[des8]

Do be aware that no matter how strong you think your case is, there is no such thing as a slam dunk win in our court system.
I'm not saying you don't have an arguable winnable case, but if Coplus are not prepared to take it on it might be more difficult than you anticipate.
There is never a guarantee of success.

You say you obtained a solicitor's opinion which supported your view, but did they not*suggest different ways of financing any action you might take. e.g. Conditional Fee Agreement?

Regarding the daughter's house it would be for the court to decide if the purchase was a "tainted" gift, and if it should be subject to confiscation

[R0b]

Why don't you make a formal complaint to Coplus which I presume would be rejected and then take it to the Financial Ombudsman who can consider the matter. If you read the FOS' guidance (click here) it does say that if you get a second opinion and the solicitor disagrees with the insurer's panel solicitor, then the FOS would expect the insurer to get a barrister's opinion.

Alternatively, as Des has already mentioned, seek out a solicitor who might be prepared to take your case on either on a no-win no-fee or damages based arrangement. If, as you suggest, there is a clear case of fraud, you should have no problem of winning your claim and a solicitor in this area would jump at the chance of making easy money.

However, any solicitor or barrister who undertakes litigation knows that what might be good prospects of success on paper, may not always apply in practice. Litigation is always risky as you don't know what the other side (or the court) might throw up.

If the issue is about recovering the money and costs, that could be a reasonable explanation as to why prospects might not be 51% or more. Sometimes in scenarios like this, criminal action may be the least costliest option as opposed to a civil action - also to note, it is a general rule of thumb that if you have good cause for bringing criminal proceedings, reasonable costs can be recovered from central funds whether the defendant is convicted or acquitted (private prosecutors are not usually required to pay costs either). If I recall, you should take the matter to the police, action fraud or any other relevant public enforcement before exercising a private prosecution.

If you feel you are all out of options then your only recourse would be to take it on yourself but I would highly recommend you take the time to think it through before embarking down that route as you may well end up a lot worse than you started.

[Guest]

Hi both thank you for taking your time to reply, the solicitor we saw not from the insurer didn’t mention other ways of funding only maybe to get Coplus to agree to pay some of his fee (which they said if they accepted the case was capped at £125 per hour), we find the rest ...

Hi Rob ... yes it’s about the recovery that’s the main sticking point, I tried action fraud but they said no, however we could look at another route maybe there? we were under the impression that you can’t recover any money down the criminal route, however it’s bad if you can’t enforce the law and someone gets away with taking mostly everything you have worked for it’s heartbreaking I guess we would have to get the cps to take it on ?

we haven’t raised a complaint yet with Coplus, they have said the solicitor will look at the file as there may be another party to sue now we should know in 10days and that was 2 days ago so fingers crossed

[des8]

It is possible to start a criminal case (although it will possibly be taken over by the CPS and discontinued)
If it continues to a guilty verdict, the judge could award you compensation.

you might find this link of interest*https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/fraud-act-2006*

[Guest]

Hi, sorry for the delay.. it’s been a few months now we have some progress - they looked at the case and agreed there was a case against the solicitor for breach of contract and negligence, they have issued an initial claim letter and they paid for a survey by an expert witness which did bore holes etc and it confirmed everything we have said (the sellers lied to building control also about what they built too that’s now documented) and they have now said they ‘strongly suspect fraud’ by our sellers (that’s 2 solicitors now and we can now see it clearer and the expert witness could see everywhere they had covered over to sell it ),

the insurer in May said at that time they did not need a barristers opinion (we have even more evidence that their daughter brought the house they live in, cash in her name) and all the family connections. Plus they had £305,000 with no mortgage to pay, off us and as we are aware did not buy a property, they built huge extensions on the house they are living in and the daughters, Partners’s house next door (that the daughter lives in). We have the plans etc so we know it was done soon after the sale
went through on this house) The daughters partners family are well known in the area and wealthy and we also know the house the sellers live in is now worth circa £400,000. Purchased for £280,000 cash weeks before our sale went through.

The expert witness said the damaged part of the house can be underpinned but also needs extensive remedial work and still wouldn’t put it back to how it should be and you would know it’s had major work done and he said maybe the most reasonable thing to do is rebuild the whole right hand side - demolish what’s there and rebuild it properly with the right foundations. Now he is doing a specification and he will send 3 companies out to quote on the underpinning and remedial and the rebuild too. (He said either £80,000 underpin etc or £100,000 plus vat for rebuild but this needs confirming)

then they will send that to an expert valuer who will work out the DIV and that’s the basis of the claim they said which we are very very concerned about and they said we may not get our losses back.

We have had a battle with our solicitor all the way through to get facts right and they have tried to water it down and only concentrate on underpinning. We have spoken to the supervisor months ago and he didn’t realise we hadn’t got funding to go after our sellers and we said to make sure they are litigating the right way. At that time he said we could put a claim letter also into the sellers to bring them to the table too and then our solicitor said no as the house is not in their name (even though it’s fraud). We still feel like both cases need a barristers opinion and we haven’t got the money to do the legal part or pay for a barrister ourselves (and the insurer has to agree)

we are saying that we are entitled to recission (in lieu) against gra seller and that’s our losses and that the claim against the solicitor should reflect that loss as the negligence and breach of contract let the fraud through

can you offer any advice please? Using these figures does anyone know how recission in lieu would be calculated ? also we are very worried about the DIV calculation. Also if we get some losses back from the solicitor can we still go after the seller for the rest or both at the same time ?

we have had resistance from the insurers solicitor all the way through and they keep getting facts wrong. we have a fraud barrister ready to do opinions on both cases and enforcement routes but it’s up to £16,000 and to get that back, coplus would need to agree they need the opinion too

We are just broken with it all and it’s so difficult to compute that someone can steal basically our pension and get away with it, and our panel solicitor has made this even more stressful and difficult for us; they said it’s an odd case and it feels like they are looking for a the quick fix for them that’s not the best thing for us . we are both self employed and with the Covid it’s been difficult to work and we have been at breaking point with it and now it’s crunch time on working the figures and the right route

thanks again for previous help, we just want to make sure we are going down the right route and we can recover our losses

kind regards
Amanda