Title deeds to property

karenj

My aunt has just paid off her mortgage after the full term, so there are no fees for repaying early. However, the Halifax has told her that she will need to pay £50 for a 'Deeds Release Fee' and if this is not paid, then they will destroy them. Has anyone any experience of paying off their mortgage and receiving the Deeds to the property? Surely they cannot destroy any Deeds to a property as they will be needed if the property is sold on?

c_smith

Sounds like extortion to me. I would contact the police.

Debt_Free_Chick

Do you need paper deeds anymore? I thought that most property deeds were now held electronically on the Land Registry?

Might be worth having a look here. For £2 you can make an enquiry online to see if the property has been registered. There's also information about how to register, if the property is not yet registered.

HTH

DaveUK_3

They cannot destroy the deeds but they can charge you for their 'safe keeping'
Best thing to do is leave an outstanding Mortgage of say £1 so that they have to keep hold of them. Thats cheaper than paying over the £50....but its too late in your case.

System

I would get your aunt to phone head office and check that what they say is correct.

Debt_Free_Chick

By co-incidence, I've just recieved my paper deeds in the post! We're remortgaging and the deeds have been returned to me, with a note from my solicitor saying that the details are held on the Land Registry, so the paper deeds are no longer required. Just returned to us for the "historical interest".

So .... please check and see if you really need/want them.

AFAIK, all mortgage lenders charge a Release Fee. We paid one and we're only remortgaging. We paid £150, but were not offered the option of having the deeds destroyed. The release fee is in the standard charges table that we agreed to as part of the mortgage.

Check the small print

EdInvestor

The solicitior who processed your purchase will probably store them for free if you need them - posssibly on the basis you're more likely to use him when you sell if he's already got the papers.;)

Debt_Free_Chick

Editor wrote:

The solicitior who processed your purchase will probably store them for free if you need them - posssibly on the basis you're more likely to use him when you sell if he's already got the papers.;)

I don't think it's future storage that's the problem for the OP. It's the fact that the mortgage company want money to release them.

In my case, I'll store my deeds. I am always slightly bemused by the agony that some people seem to have with this issue. After all, there are all sorts of other documents we need to store. Anyway, the title to my property is registered at the Land Registry, so I've only got a paper version of what is already registered electronically. In other words, deeds aren't worth the paper they're printed on, if the title is registered electronically with the Land Registry.

Regards

margaretclare

When we did our equity release and our joint names were registed as owners, we were told by the conveyancer that the title to property was safely registered with the Land Registry on their database and paper deeds were of no further use. We were offered them, but if we didn't want them the conveyancer would send them to the county's Record Office.

We've got them, the whole bundle going back to the beginning of last century, 1900s. They're fascinating as historical documents. We intend to keep them here to be passed on with the house when the second of us dies and the house is sold, along with a note requesting that if the next owners don't want them, send them to the county Record Office.

Our solicitor doesn't have space to store all these documents, and at no stage were we asked for a fee to have the paper deeds.

Aunty Margaret