Soon to be Mortgage Free - What to do with Deeds?

ViksB

Yippee :j
Soon to be mortgage free (next month in fact, although we will probably wait until November before Closing the account, as its also our current account).
When we close it I am assuming that the lender (The One account) will give back our deeds. What do we do with them then? Do we need to store them at a solicitors? or just show them in a draw somewhere!!

Any advice??

Viks

Tallymanjohn

As far as I'm aware, deeds aren't as important as they used to be - our lender sent our deeds back to us about 6 months ago (even though we still have a mortgage with them) because it's all handled electronically & centrally by the Land Registry now. So I suggest you just put them away with your passports, insurance documents etc.

Sparky29

Tallymanjohn is right. I paid my small mortgage off and contacted the land registry. The property is now registered electronically and therefore the deeds are now more of a souvenir than a functional document. My deeds dated back to 1905 and were quite interesting to read the history of the building. There is no point paying a bank or solicitor to store your deeds anymore as was the practice a few years back.

nearlyrich

We paid off our mortgage a few years ago, the Halifax offered to store our deeds free of charge if we left £100 outstanding. We don't pay any interest on the £100 and they can count us as a borrower for their claim of the largest UK mortgage lender.

Our property is also registered at the land registry so it's not really that important to have the deeds but they are quite interesting.

Andyboy

Firstly congrats on being mortgage free.

I work for the land Registry and what I would do is check that the Land is Registered with the Registry and if it is have a look a the title register which should be with your documents (or can be applied for at the registry for £4) and check that you have all of the deeds that are referred to in each entry.

If you see a note at the bottom "copy filed" or similar then the Registry will have a copy and you don't have to worry too much. As one of the earlier Money savers said keep deeds in a safe place with passports etc but don't pay to store them. The reason I say this is because if there were any queries on the title in the future the deeds might need to be re-examined, although the Land registry do an extreemely thorough job (I would say that!) and this would be highly unlikely.

All the best Hope this helps.:whistle:

MoneyMagnet

Our lender gave us the deeds when we first took the mortgage out! We just keep them in a drawer with other documents.

Thefunkygibbons

Mine are now in a box with other stuff that I need to keep but not valuable in themselves

Mine were only 1977, so not much of interest on them

yung

congratulaton Mine finished in July what a relief that was. I am still waiting for my deed though.

Maisie

nearlyrich wrote:

We paid off our mortgage a few years ago, the Halifax offered to store our deeds free of charge if we left £100 outstanding. We don't pay any interest on the £100 and they can count us as a borrower for their claim of the largest UK mortgage lender.

Our property is also registered at the land registry so it's not really that important to have the deeds but they are quite interesting.

The Abbey offered us this service too if we left 50p outstanding. No interest to be charged.

However each year we've had a statement saying if we wish to redeem the 50p mortgage it would cost us £.... Going up each year. I think it says £99 on the latest statement. Must look.

Someone wrote to the Daily Telegraph financial column about this and took it up with Abbey who backed down in their case and didn't charge them for redeeming it. I'm going to write to them too.

There's a difference to them storing for you and when you want to get deeds back.

HTH

vixen1500

We have our deeds - in a drawer at home. Had mortgage with the Halifax - have left a small balance on the account this enables us to get our buildings and contents insurance at a lower discounted rate (also makes it easier to get a further advance in the future against the house if the need should arise)

Johnhowell

Thefunkygibbons wrote:

Mine are now in a box with other stuff that I need to keep but not valuable in themselves

Mine were only 1977, so not much of interest on them

Not of interest... My house was built in 1984, but the deeds give details of the plot dating back to 1904!

One reason for keeping the original deeds rather than rely on the Land Registry Title is the original one will have the "T" or "H" for boundary ownership - the Land Registry does not. Also, the Land Registry extract you can download is just that an extract and on mine some clauses are missing - in fact one whole page of clauses from the original deed.

My block of houses have assigned parking spaces which, whilst shown on the Land Registry copy, are clearly identified by plot number (not house number) on the orginial developers layout drawing.

Keep them safe - but do NOT pay someone. It has been known for banks and solicitors to throw old deeds away!

Cheers,
John