Deed of House in another persons name!

joebanner

Hi there,
I am in great bother - here is my story:

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?

Maximilian

You shouldn't be posting here looking for specific legal advice.

Having said that, bearing in mind this is a case essentially of "lost" deeds, you could try looking into getting lost title deeds/defective title insurance. It might work out cheaper and bypass litigation entirely. Ask your solicitor.

Good luck.

sh_o

joebanner wrote:

My solicitor is acting for both Mr X and I.

Clearly a conflict of interests - your solicitor should have told you to get independant advice.