Title deeds lost by the Woolwich

money_matt_3

Hi all; I have joined this site specifically to ask for advice on this matter.

I agreed to buy a house 6 weeks ago only to be told that the deeds have been misplaced and the only copy was held by the (now defunct) Woolwich. I am told that the vendor's solicitor is attempting to go through the procedure of locating them with Barclays (who now own Woolwich) and has to go through the tortuous ordeal of a Bangalore-based call centre and is getting nowhere fast.

The house was not registered with the land registry and the deeds must therefore be found if I am to get absolute title of the property.

Does anyone have any experience of this? It is so unbelievably frustrating.

Any Barclays employees who can help?

Thanks in advance.

Richard_Webster

Oh yes, it is terrible - you can only contact the call centre by phone and you get no sense at all.

They recently queried a letter of mine about a property they were going to take a mortgage on described as [xx Some Road] Havant Hants [POxx xYY]- they were concerned at the address being wrong because their records showed it as being in Havant Hampshire! The other details were all the same.

So as solicitors all we can do with Barclays is write a letter and sit and wait. If they do not get any sensible reply within say 2 weeks then all they can do is make a complaint to customer services at Barclays and maybe if they are flooded with complaints they will stop using such a call centre or make sure the staff are rained properly.

GDB2222

It does sound like you should look elsewhere. If Barclays find the deeds, that's fine, but in the meantime you should continue to look.

You could also put a halt on spending any more money on this purchase until the deeds turn up.

money_matt_3

Thanks for the quick replies.

I feel as though I've already made an investment in this property (£800 on a homebuyer's survey) and would really like the house, but the longer we
hang on waiting for Barclays to get their act together, we run the risk of annoying our buyer.

We are looking at the possibility of renting for a time, but again this is extra expense incurred due to Barclays incompetence; and
I'm not even a Barclays customer so have no recourse to complain!

I am told that the problem is that the deed storage facility does not note names, addresses or postcodes; just a solitary account number.
Lose this number (as my elderly vendors have) and you have a large problem for everyone in the chain.

GDB2222

Maybe, instead of having their solicitor chasing about deeds, they should be asking the bank themselves what their old account number was?

Maybe they paid their mortgage by direct debit, and their bank may still have a record of that, including reference numbers?

I'm assuming here that the mortgage has long since been paid off.

money_matt_3

I believe this avenue is the one currently being tried; it's certainly something I have suggested they do.

Apparently they have ordered copies of bank statements from the period when the mortgage was paid of (around 1990-95) but this was
some weeks ago. They have since ordered these statements again (!) and are yet to receive them.

I am of the opinion that as and when these statements arrive, the direct debit transaction number will reveal the mortgage number,
which in turn should lead them to the deeds.

I live in hope...

DVardysShadow

money_matt wrote: »

I believe this avenue is the one currently being tried; it's certainly something I have suggested they do.

Apparently they have ordered copies of bank statements from the period when the mortgage was paid of (around 1990-95) but this was
some weeks ago. They have since ordered these statements again (!) and are yet to receive them.

I am of the opinion that as and when these statements arrive, the direct debit transaction number will reveal the mortgage number,
which in turn should lead them to the deeds.

I live in hope...

In this position, for your sake and for the vendors

• advise the vendors to get the property registered with the land registry, free of encumbrances
• start looking for another property
• only buy this one if they get it sorted before you find another property

squashy

Just get the vendors to take out an indemnity policy, I have lots of experiance under this title deeds experiance trying to trace deeds myself, 3 years to no avail, Your real problem starts when you try to sell your house on.

xylophone

http://www.theprobatedepartment.co.uk/pre-death-planning/unregistered-houses/