Ownership of property

Hi, 

I wonder if you could help me please. 

Around 10 yrs ago I purchased a property in Spain and a letting company managed the renting of the property. After around 1yr of ownership I received a letter to say the property had fallen into technical default. The letting company had gone bankrupt and had not informed us. The mortgage had not been paid for nearly a year. I spoke to the bank and they where not willing to negotiate and informed me it would be repossessed. So I walked away. Recently I contacted the Spanish solicitor about the property and he informed me that he still had the deeds and that I now owned the property outright.

I am going to contact him again tomorrow but I wanted to know, is it possible that I can now own the property? Does the bank have a certain time to repossess maybe and if not then the property passes to the owner? 

Thanks for you help.

J

Joe: Just in case you have not checked, I have sent you a PM

The 'deeds' or the escritura are not proof of ownership in Spain. Also if the bank have repossessed the property you are still legally liable for the outstanding debt.

It seems an extraordinary situation.  I do not believe it is possible in Spain for the bank to take possession of your property without either your express, written agreement or a court order.  

Your solicitor will be able to confirm who the authorities say is the current legal owner from the Land Registry records.  

Please do post an update, it would be interesting to know!

** EDITED**

Correct me if l am wrong .....the way I read your post is that you took out Mortgage 10 years back and only paid it for 1 year and have made no payment's to the bank for the last 9 years and you want to know if you own the property as it is still empty...... if that's what you are saying ,then I can say all you own is a extremely large dept for instance 9 years mortgage arrears/9 years I.B.I  arrears/9 years Community charges arrears/outstanding electric bill/water bill plus interest if you pay the outstanding Dept the Bank will give you the key back.The Lawyer that contacted you is working for the Bank and looking to recover the full  dept  why else would he bother to get in touch after 10 year's think about it.

Its is worth talking to the Bank and checking on the Land registry and Court procedure. No repossession procedure is valid if you have note been notified on its start and therefore have had possibilities of defense.

Who is the spanish solicitor you contacted? An independent one who helped you when purchasing the property?