Is mortgaging land done in England? My story takes place there. I need the antagonist to steal the title document to mortgage land. Is it alright there?
A mortgage is a loan secured on property. You really need to get some definitive advice on what someone would need to do with the title document to mortgage the land. There are safeguards now, for instance if someone else has an interest in property, such child/sibling/spouse/parent still living in the house, you have to sign documents to confirm that they know about changes/mortgage. Also, you can't just take a title deed and take out a mortgage on it without some kind of confirmation of your interest in the land/property. If the story takes place in history, it's a different matter. There again you need to do research to ensure you have the facts. Try this site for history - and it might give you more up to date info, I'm not sure. www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ It's a good site, loads of info, facts and figures.
Thank you. The story takes place in present time. The son of the owner of the property wishes to mortgage the estate. its still in his fathers name. Is it still okay? I must mention that it is a stolen document,(stolen, as in, from his own father), but nobody knows about it.
I wouldn't do it until you've made sound checks. Things have change over the last ten years or so and I wouldn't assume that you can do what you're thinking. It'll cost about £25 for a consult. That should tell you all you need to know. Or Google like mad - you may come up with something substantial. I really do think you need to research this because you need to get it right.
I would have done the consult. But i need to be in England for a consult. I'm in India. Besides, its a kids mystery. Do you think kids would actually care if the rules existed or not? I mean, its important to be as near the truth as possible. but would kids actually go to the extend of verifying it? i agree with the googling.
Oh, right. You don't need to go into as much detail then with children's story. Just enough to have them understand. It's not that they wouldn't care if the rules existed - just that they don't need to know the in and outs. You can be a bit vague about it. Good luck with it all.
Considering it's a children's story I think stealing the title deed is perfectly plausible. It can't actually happen like that today in the UK, unless it is one of those ruined castles that everybody forgot about and someone decided to lay a false claim to it. But those places are usually out of the way and not very profitable, unless there's some priceless antique or treasure hidden there. But that's not something kids will ever care about so I think the title deed plot is a good one.
I would find the story more plausible if he did this by impersonating his father. If land is owned by Person A, I don't think that there's a way for Person B to mortgage it _as_ Person B. In the US, title searches are done to make sure that the person getting the mortgage is the person who has ownership of the land. I would guess that the same is true in England. If the mortgage does go through, and it can be proven that the person who got the mortgage is not the owner of the land, then the owner of the land would not be committed to the mortgage and the bank would be out of luck. Charlotte MacLeod used this premise in her Kelling family series of mysteries - the legal wrangling with the bank, to determine who really owned a house on which a mortgage was written by someone impersonating the rightful owner, continued through several books. Rather than being a title related to the mortgage, perhaps the missing paper could be a document that transferred ownership to someone before the mortgage was written? If the sequence of events were: - Father transfers ownership to daughter. - Son impersonates father to get a mortgage. then the paper transferring ownership would give ownership to the daughter and the bank would be out of luck. If that paper is lost and the father is unable to prove that he didn't obtain the mortgage, than the father might lose the house to the bank. Of course, if the father is unable to prove that he didn't obtain the mortgage, and the paper is found, then the father has obtained a mortgage on a property that he doesn't own, and might go to jail. It's all very messy.
Thank you jazzabel,Yes, i agree, kids wouldn't go about asking if title deeds required. Thanks ChickenFreak, Thank you. Now I understand a lot more about title deeds. (I'm not really good with land law stuff. ) The mortgage doesn't go through. The person gets caught before that. I just wanted to know if he would have a motive. If he can't mortgage, there would be no reason for him to steal it.
