Management Fees from previous property

[Airwolf]

Hi, I sold a house last year. I hadn't lived in the house for the guts of 10 years after I split up with my ex. My ex continued to live there until the market recovered in some way. I contributed to the mortgage for all those years. I never knew there was a management company involved, never informed and never seen any bills. On selling the house, everything went well and the case was closed. I thought brilliant, get on with my life now, I have a loan to pay over the next few years but at least its a steady monthly outgoing, no surprises bills like in the past etc.. brilliant!

Last week I get a call from the solicitor that sold the house for me. He said the new owners have got letters from the management company looking for arrears, from the time that my ex partner and I were the registered owners... WTF!!! The management company are looking for a few thousand euro.

I sent an angry email to my solicitor. I struggled to get a loan to sell that house as it was in negative equity and to pay his massive bill etc.. I asked him several times during the process to check and double check everything and to confirm the loan was all I needed to close the deal.. He confirmed everything and that was that. Now out of the blue he's back saying I owe thousands more nearly a year later... Really annoyed at this as I'm struggling to keep afloat and I had to pull many strings to get that loan in the first place to sell the house. That's why I was so precise with him about how much I needed and that there were no financial surprises.

Surely this is a mess up on both the sellers and purchasers solicitors and the problem should be dealt with them. The whole point of paying my solicitor was to manage the process and to avoid situations like this. Also, the purchaser’s solicitor should have checked as part of establishing title that the property was free of encumbrances. That solicitor failed too. How did the two of them mess this up so badly, and how did the house sell with this hanging over it ??!

Who is responsible for this bill now?

My solicitor had a duty to request responses to the Multi Unit Development requisitions which would cover the question of outstanding service charges. This must not have been done as there was nothing mentioned. How did the sale complete without this information?? I'm sure the purchaser’s mortgage provider would never have lent unless the position of the management company was in order.

Am I legally required to pay for this bill or is it a matter for the solicitor firms/new owners?

 

[mf1]

"Who is responsible for this bill now? "

Well, there's a pretty picture.

So:

1. There is a Management Company.
2. You, the Vendors, did not know there was a Management Company.
3. Therefore, unless it was totally obvious from the Title, your solicitor did not know there was a Management Company.
4. The purchasers' solicitor did not know there was a Management Company.
5. During the conveyancing process, the query as to whether the Multi Unit Development Act applied will have been raised and, presumably, the answer was no, because no-one knew there was a Management Company.

So, the Million Dollar question?

How obvious/clear was it that there was a Management Company involved?

Personally, I would have thought that the vendors should know this. Or that it should be clear from the Title Deeds/planning permission. Or that the purchasers will have ascertained this , right at the beginning.

So, go back through that thread- did the vendors know? Is it obvious? Did the vendors' solicitor act on their clients' instructions? And where, ultimately, does the liability lie?

And it may well lie in the vendors' lap.

You might want to carefully check all the details. Only then can it be ascertained where the original misapprehension arose.

mf