Lis Pendens expert needed

[Rebecca Browne]

Hi BP,

I have been saving for a number of years to buy my first property. Back in June i purchased a property on an auction website. The purchase price was $280,000 and it was independently valued at $320,000 shortly after.

Two days before closing on the property the former owner but a lis pendens on the title and blocked the sale.

Some background as I know it. The former owner had the property repossessed by his bank in 2016. The bank sold off 1 billion of bad debt to a venture capital company in 2017 including the above property. The property has been sat empty and boarded up for the past two years, I bid for it in June 2019.

Since the finding of the lis pendens, my solicitor has been in contact with the venture capital companies solicitor to try and rectify the matter. The disgruntled former homeowner does not want to co-operate and all I am being told for the past 5 months is they are trying to fix the situation but they cannot give me a time frame (and this is the odd time they reply). The venture capital company and their solicitors have my $28,000 10% deposit and don't seem to be doing anything about removing the lis pendens so that I can complete the sale.

I believe the lis pendens have to be declared before taking action? But this was never done, my solicitor and I do not even know what the block on the title is in regards to? Is this information we should be able to find out? We're being left completely in the dark. 

I am so stressed and would love to talk to someone that has experience with this.

Thank you,

Danny