Owners of a residential property immediately adjacent to, but outside the road scheme’s order limits, needed to sell their property in order to release equity - having fallen behind with mortgage payments. However, the impending road scheme had made their property unsaleable on the open market due to the blighting impact of the scheme. Unable to release equity and deal with the mortgage arrears, the result was that they had come under increasing pressure from their mortgage lender and were now subject to mortgage repossession proceedings. The family approached specialist compulsory purchase solicitor, Catherine Hibbert, for advice and representation.
Without intervention and in the event the property was repossessed, the client faced the potential loss of a material amount of equity in their property. Having contacted Holmes & Hills Solicitors specialist division of compulsory purchase solicitors, who were already advising a number of property and landowners in respect of the same scheme, a solution to maintain and extract the equity from the property was advised on.
It was important for the client to retain ownership of the property to facilitate and conclude negotiations with the scheme promoter, National Highways. With this aim, Catherine made an application to National Highways for the discretionary purchase of the property by National Highways on grounds of financial hardship arising as a result of the scheme. This application was successful. At the same time, Holmes & Hills Solicitors orchestrated a stay in the mortgage repossession proceedings to allow for the conclusion of the sale of the property to National Highways at an unblighted market valuation. This maximised the equity value to be released from the property, facilitating repayment of the outstanding mortgage plus release of additional value which assisted in alleviating financial pressure on the client.
Following advice from the specialist Compulsory Purchase and Development Consent Division at Holmes & Hills Solicitors, in particular from Catherine Hibbert, the client was able to avoid the repossession of their property by their lender paving the way for sale to the scheme promoter, National Highways, for an unblighted value. This alleviated material financial pressures being faced by the client, avoided loss of material equity value that could have arisen in the event of a fire sale in the hands of the lender, and prevented potential long-lasting implications for our clients in terms of credit rating.
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