DMBM681390 - Ordinary Cause: Discharging an inhibition where full payment of debt has been made

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If a defender who has been inhibited wishes to

• sell
• mortgage or
• offer as security
• any property that he either owns or jointly owns he will usually require to produce a Discharge of Inhibition (a document, which gives evidence that the inhibition has been uplifted thus providing clear title to the property).

Where the HMRC debt that has been included in your action is paid in full together with the expenses you have a legal obligation to discharge the inhibition on request. If you fail to do this, HMRC may be liable for the expenses of the court action. That being so, in every case where you receive payment in full you must

• prepare and issue a full discharge.

Also because you are legally obliged to provide a discharge, when requested to do so, you should not attach any conditions to its issue. - By stating for example that the discharge will only be issued if the defender decides to pay other outstanding arrears which were not included in the ordinary cause action.

You can, however inform the defender that unless he pays these other arrears you will be seeking a further decree for these sums which could result in a further inhibition being placed.