life assurance advice needed

Hi Sue,

I have moved your question into the "Ask A Question" section of the Forum as it is probably the most appropriate place for it.

I am no expert on life assurance policies so I may not be able to assist with that particular part of your question. However I have extensive residential conveyancing experience and I do not quite understand how your were able to transfer the property into your sole name without obtaining the consent of your lender.

If you could explain how you were able to do this it may allow me to answer the question more fully or allow someone else on the forum to give you some advice.

Generally speaking if you were to use a solicitor to transfer the property from joint names into your sole name the first question a solicitor would ask you was whether you had approached the lender for their consent. If a lender does not consent to the transfer then the solicitor would not proceed with the Transfer until the lender had issued their consent.

Could you give the exact circumstances surrounding the transfer of the property?

Normally in these circumstances provided the lender was satisfied that the remaining owner had the ability to pay the property would be transferred with the consent of the lender who would release the outgoing owner from his ogligations.

As part of the deal the outgoing partner would assign the benefits of the life policy to the remaining partner.

I have come across cases where property has been transferred but the transferor has not been released. If you are registered as the sole owner then that is OK. Your ex partner is more at risk than you.

So far as the policy is concerned you will have to try and get his agreement to the assignment of the benefits. Normally the insurance company will provide the necessary form. If he does not agree then regrettably the matter can only be resolved by an application to the court.

Hi Gerard

Thank you for your reply.

Re the transfer of the property. I work for the land registry and its my job to make sure all deeds and forms are legal before registering them so I drafted the disposition myself. I submitted it to the registry the way any self conveyancer would do. I didn't have anything to do with it being registered as that would have been a bit dodgy. I did call my lender and they did consent to me doing the trasfer of title but they would not let me do the deed of variation, that had to be done through a solicitor. Unfortunately i did not get the consent in writing. With all the bills to pay by myself i could not at the time afford to appoint a solicitor to do the variation and the mortgage company want £140 just to tell me whether they think i can afford to take over the mortgage.  I can afford to pay it all (just) but it won't look like that on paper.

Wouldn't my ex have to sign the variation too? (he's not exactly going to go out of his way to help solve this as he thinks because he is still on the mortgage he can somehow force me to sell the house and give him some money!)

Would it be possible to just cancel the life assurance policy and start another one in just my name?

Hi Ian

Thank you for taking the time to read and reply.

I don't hold out much hope for getting my ex to agree to the assignment.

How would an application to court work? What would I have to do?

You would have to make an application to the county court for a declaration that the policy is held in trust for you alone.

This is likely to be very expensive if you were to use a solicitor.

I assume the policy lasts for a number of years and will pay out a smaller amount as each year passes until it eventually dwindles to nothing.

It may well be therefore that you could simply allow this policy to lapse and take out a new one.

You should check with your insurance company as to the implications of this. As it is not an endowment policy there may be no problem except the cost of the new premium.

It might be worth telling your ex-partner that this is what you are going to do. If you then die your executors may not pay off the mortgage which in certain circumstances might leave him liable to pay the lender. This might concentrate his mind.

I should say that I have assumed you are not married to your ex-partner.

The policy is a Mortgage decreasing assurance policy so yes as the mortgage gets smaller so does the pay out on death.

I did think about just cancelling the policy but as my ex is still on the mortgage, would any insurance company give me a policy in just my name? If so then this would be the best solution to the problem.

I would inform him of what you suggest but i only have an e-mail address for him and i am not even sure that he still uses it.  I have e-mailed twice regarding this since January but had no reply. It would certainly benefit both of us to have this all sorted out now.

You are right, we were never married.

Check with the insurance company and then let me know what they say.

Hi Ian

spoke to the insurance company who were very helpful and gave me a few options on how to sort it out.  However after I e-mailed my ex and told him I was going to cancel the policy and he would still be liable for the payments if I were to die, he was only too happy to contact the insurance and confirm to them he wanted removed from the policy :-) 

Thank you for your advice, very helpful website!

Sue

As you have been so helpful with this can I ask another question?

As I have said I did the Disposition myself  and submitted it to the land registry, as a result the updated Land Certificate was sent out to me. Should I send this to the mortgage company?

They have not requested it as yet but I assume as they technically own the property till the last payment is made (or I re-mortgage with a different lender) then they should hold the land cert.

As you know we no longer have land or charge certificates.

I would be inclined to leave things as they are.

I am pleased you were able to obtain the right result.

Perhaps you could pass on the word about this website to others. This would be most helpful.