Fran Hurst bought her house in Liverpool 44 years ago but has not made any payments since being burgled four years later

It is a mystery worthy of a Christmas TV special, and it has bamboozled some of the country’s brightest legal minds.

A Liverpool pensioner is attempting to solve the 40-year-old case of a disappearing mortgage-lender, which she says has left her “living as a squatter” in her own house since 1979, not having to pay a penny to service the home loan, but also unable to sell it.

The curious case began in November 1975 when Fran Hurst, now 70, and her bus driver husband bought their terraced house in Anfield for £3,500 — £28,881 in today’s money — from their landlord. This made them among the first homeowners in their typically working-class street.

Their transaction was informal and unorthodox. The couple agreed to hand