Buyer threatening- injunction not mentioned in saledeed
I am an NRI and owned a piece of land in a good neighborhood for 3 years. Person A posted a board stating that that it is his property: I came know about it, flew down and after ensuring my documents were upto date, got the board removed. I erected huge boards and signs on my property walls pointing any questions to my lawyer. It was very visible that if anyone had a stake, they had the right contact details. It also directed them to my lawyer who did not hear from anyone for over 3 months. The lawyer advised me to speculatively file an injunction on the person who supposedly put the board so that my property is protected while I was out of country. I did not meet the person A or speak to him since his contact details were not available + I was confident of my papers. Also, I considered this as mischief by real estate sharks and approached local MLAs as well to advise.
I had already decided to sell prior to this since my job had moved permanently and this incident forced me to act quickly. Since the Lawyer advised that I can sell while having an injunction, I went ahead and talked to prospective buyers.
A month later I sold the property at a below market price to someone who was looking to buy in 1 shot. To start with, I informed them that I am selling because there are miscreants who were always disturbing the peace and that I had to fly down to take care of mischief. Was clear to them that I was selling since I could not remotely manage the property. I didn't explicitly inform about the injunction because it thought that was not real + there was no response from anyone for over a month after the board was removed+ I thought that local MLA shut down any mischief mongers. However, I directed the buyer to my same lawyer ( he is reputed and is in the bank audit committee ) who had full information of the entire situation. My thought was that the entire situation was made very clear to buyer and if there was need to disclose the injunction, the lawyer would do it.
A month after sale completion, the lawyer had withdrawn the injunction. But right after 2 months, person A put an injunction and took physical possession of the sold property.
I was called in from Abroad and I paid a huge amount as one time eviction settlement to get the miscreants evacuated. I did it out of compassion seeing what the buyer was going through. I felt it was my duty to help them evict the personA.
After several hearings in the court this year, the buyer feels this will be a long drawn effort to reclaim. The issue seems to be that the housing society may have recently allocated my site as a duplicate to person A, while I had full possession documents. I definitely had the sale deed that dates back to the origin.
The buyer is now threatening me of filing cheating case and attaching my other properties. I did not act with the intent of cheating. Rather I was completely confident of my papers since I had the property under my possession for 3 years and I had purchased the property from a known friend who lives is same area. My papers continue to be valid and genuine. The buyer continues to fight to regain the property, but he returned the eviction money after 6 months, and is threatening me to recover his money by pursuing a cheating case. He says I should have mentioned about injunction in sale deed.
In the entire episode the lawyer is common. He had he full idea of the right and wrong and advised me to go ahead and sell, felt no need to disclose the injunction considering it was frivolous. He prepared the sale deed, acted as buyers lawyer, cleared all legal hurdles and enabled the sale.
Things that I can show that my intent was not cheating
- No one approached me, no one responded to the signs and boards. My phone number was right there.
- I had a guard on duty for over a year and no one spoke to him.
- I had no idea at the time of filing injunction that there would be an immediate sale. I had advertised at several places 6 months prior to the issue. There is strong documentary evidence of advertisements of my intent to sell. Emails and my broker.
- I was clear verbally to all the prospective buyers from the very start about the empty site problem and informed them of my motivation to sell. I chose the buyer whose plot was adjacent and thought he was in the best position to take care of the site.
- the buyer wanted to do the transaction in 1 shot and despite my recommendation for an agreement followed by sale, he forced a registration date wherein I had fly to India just for 2 days.
- The moment I heard about the personA encroachment, I flew down and supported the buyer in all respects - financial and documentary
- I kept in touch periodically with buyer and asked how can help.
Things that the buyer did that caused him to lose possession.
- he threw out the guards
- after the sake, when person A approached buyer and told that he too had a claim, buyer rubbished it and sent him away.
- buyer did not safeguard the property thereafter.
How do I proceed? Am I in right legal standing? Can someone attach my properties? I am worried. Please advise