Aunt left a house, but no deeds

MJGS

My Aunt's husband died over a year ago. She was left the home they shared, which was only in his name as it was his, she moved in with him 30 years ago.

When the solicitors tried to change the land registry it came up that the home was never registered on the land registry. The solicitors contact Santander (the mortagage was actually with Bradford and Bingley). The mortgage was paid of quite a few years a go, but my aunt knows that the deeds where never sent to her late husband. Santander maintain they did send them.

The solicitors have been very slow in sorting this out, but have come back and said that all they can do is register the land as not claimed and that after 12 years of living there she can then register it. This has really caused her massive worry as she cant afford to stay in the home and needs to sell and down size. She is also not in the best of health and wants to get this all resolved so she can focus on her health and properly mourning her husband.

Is this right? Is there anything else she can do? Thanks in advance.

Rodders53

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/first-registration-of-title-where-deeds-have-been-lost-or-destroyed
Your Aunt will be registering with 'possessory title' which after 12 years will become absolute title.

A good and thorough search of the entire property for any papers relating to the house, mortgage etc.,. would be in order... Deeds may have been placed somewhere 'safe' by your late Uncle?

At the end of the day the title granted depends on how good a case the Solicitors can present to Land Registry regarding the ownership and loss of the original Deeds...

Selling is possible, but may be more difficult although having lived there for 30 years would suggest there is little chance of anyone else coming forward as 'owner'. Insurance can cover the risk to a purchaser.

Yorkshireman99

MJGS wrote: »

My Aunt's husband died over a year ago. She was left the home they shared, which was only in his name as it was his, she moved in with him 30 years ago.

When the solicitors tried to change the land registry it came up that the home was never registered on the land registry. The solicitors contact Santander (the mortagage was actually with Bradford and Bingley). The mortgage was paid of quite a few years a go, but my aunt knows that the deeds where never sent to her late husband. Santander maintain they did send them.

The solicitors have been very slow in sorting this out, but have come back and said that all they can do is register the land as not claimed and that after 12 years of living there she can then register it. This has really caused her massive worry as she cant afford to stay in the home and needs to sell and down size. She is also not in the best of health and wants to get this all resolved so she can focus on her health and properly mourning her husband.

Is this right? Is there anything else she can do? Thanks in advance.

The solicitor is correct but there are ways to resolve it though it will cost money. Essentially what happens is an insurance policy is taken out to pay out in the event of any claim. This enables the house to be sold. If her solicitor is not up to the job she needs to find another one.

FreeBear

Rodders53 wrote: »

A good and thorough search of the entire property for any papers relating to the house, mortgage etc.,. would be in order... Deeds may have been placed somewhere 'safe' by your late Uncle?

It would also be worth looking through any old paperwork and see if he had any dealings with solicitors. It may be possible that the deeds were lodged with a law firm and are buried in an archive somewhere. If there was a will, the first place to start would be with the solicitor that penned the will.


I was in a similar situation last year - Had inherited an unregistered property, but couldn't find the deeds. None of the local solicitors had record of them, neither did the bank. Eventually tracked the documents down from a vague memory of a law firm that had been taken over by an international outfit and had closed all the local offices. A few phone calls to head office in London and the deeds were eventually located in a vault along with a 40 year old will.

Land_Registry

Rodders53 has linked you to our Practice Guide which explains what is required to register the title for the first time where the deeds cannot be found.

A thorough search will be required and it is important to keep a record of what efforts are made to locate the deeds as this then forms part of the application

The property also has to be transferred into her name as well so I assume probate has been obtained. Whilst the executor can sell it for example and she takes receipt of the monies left over, a buyer may not be willing to proceed on that basis - your solicitor should be able to advise on that though.

The key point re the 12 years aspect is that the odds are she would only get possessory title. And as posted an application to upgrade to absolute title could then happen in another 12 years.

Insuring, via an indemnity policy, against the buyer's risk of accepting the possessory title is the modern way of dealing with such things and again your solicitor should be able to advise.

Getting the title registered for the first time seems to be the priority but that need not stop conversations taking place around trying to sell as well as there are rarely hard and fast rules to how a buyer or their solicitor view such things.

silvercar

If the mortgage was with Bradford and Bingley there is a very real chance that they held the deeds. They had a massive fire in 1998 and lots of deeds they held were destroyed. They paid the cost of sorting out the problem. They said at the time that it could take years to recreate deeds on non registered properties.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Blaze+gives+building+society+major+headache+over+deeds.-a060703355

MJGS

Thank you all for your replies. My aunt has been through everything that she has at home. She does remember a conversation she had with her husband that was that the building society offered him the deeds once the mortgage was paid off for a charge of £30. He didn't want to pay and asked them to keep hold of them. She thinks this may well have been a phone conversation, she also can't find any correspondence about this, so makes her more sure it was a conversation via phone. Toward the end his health was very bad (he passed away at 92) and although his solicitor recommended that he sort out the deeds he didn't get around to it.

I also found info about Bradford and Bingley's fire and she has given this info to the solicitors, but they haven't done anything with it, in the form of speaking to Santander about whether this may have been one of the deeds lost in the fire. The mortgage was originally with a Welsh building society that was taken over by Bradford and Bingley, then Santander. I don't know how the deeds are moved around, but they must have had a fair journey?