Paying off deceased's Nationwide mortgage

Crowdedhouse_2

When cousin died she had a mortgage of approx. £30,000 with Nationwide Building Society.


I will be going in to my local branch tomorrow to pay off the mortgage. Cousin's mother keeps saying "if you leave £1 owing on the mortgage they have to store the deeds and keep them safe".


Does anyone know if this is correct? Or if not, what actually would happen to the deeds once the mortgage is completely paid off?


Thanks.

SevenOfNine

No, hasn't been the case for a few years now. They wrote off our £1 & sent us our deeds, we had no say in the matter.

Deeds aren't quite the important documents requiring safe storage that they once were, as long as the property is registered with Land Registry. You might want to check if cousins property has been registered, can take a look on-line for a couple of pounds.

Crowdedhouse_2

Thanks for your reply. I did download something from Land Registry website a few months ago. From what I remember, it had details of previous owners of the property and any charges against it. I wonder if these are the deeds?

TBagpuss

If the house is registered (most are, these days) the most important records are at the Land Registry, not with the deeds.

When the mortgage is cleared the lender should send notification to the Land Registry to confirm that they no longer have any interest n the property, and any paperwork they hold would be released to you (assuming you are the executor)

It's unlikely that you'll need the deeds. They may have some historic interest (particularly for an older property)

Yorkshireman99

Yes. Deeds are only needed if the property has not been registered.

TBagpuss

what you want from the Land Registry are the Office Copy Entries. They should show your cousin as owner and the charge to the Nationwide.

Crowdedhouse_2

Thanks everyone.

Mojisola

TBagpuss wrote: »

They may have some historic interest (particularly for an older property)

My parents' house only dated from the 1960s but the deeds were still interesting and I left the file for the new owners. I hope they look after them and pass them on when they move.

brewerdave

It is worth checking with the Land Registry after the mortgage has been redeemed,to ensure that the B/Soc charge has been removed. We had a conservatory built which required permission from the Water Co. to build over drains - they initially refused because an old mortgage was still showing at the LR - the Nationwide had not done their job when we had paid off the outstanding amounts 7 years previously!!:eek:

chesky

I'm having to try to unpick the fact that, when the Portland building society sent me the deeds 13 years ago, they neglected to inform the land registry that I had paid the mortgage off. As they were then taken over by Nationwide who have no existing records, I'm having to deal with this.

chesky

... Sorry, missed off the fact that their charge against the property is still in place.
So I guess it's best to get these things really sorted.