Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Do I Really Own A House?

I had a Client who appeared for sentencing in a Crown Court recently on a benefit fraud case for a substantial sum of money over a long period of time. The case appeared to be simple and straight forward until the prosecuting authority made some enquiries and discovered that my Client has a share in a property that they did not know about.

Between the guilty plea being entered and what was expected to be the sentence hearing the facts of the case have changed quite dramatically making the prospect of a custodial sentence more likely.

My Client seems to be oblivious to the fact that they have a share in a property because as far as they are concerned they own nothing. Owning a share in a property is going to be a little bit difficult to explain away! But, I am already thinking that occupational rent, or something like that, might be able to explain this one away?

3 comments:

Gavin Whenman said...

How can they not know they have a share in a property?

Gavin said...

The short story is they signed a mortgage deed a long time ago but never made any payments because the other person on the joint mortgage did.

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