Deeds to house

pothole50

My father in law died recently and my wife and I are trying to sort out the finances for mum, but have hit a snag with the deeds to the house. She cannot locate them, so we don't know if the house was joint owned. I have telephoned the land registry but they have no record of it, probably because it was purchased back in 1953. So could anyone advise the best route to go down to sort the deeds out

troubleinparadise

Are the deeds possibly being held by the solicitors who handled the purchase for your in-laws, or the mortgage company who they mortgaged through?

That's where my parents' house deeds had been kept, and they held them in safekeeping until we came to selling the house after their deaths - the deeds were released to the solicitors handling the sale for us.

marcelli

Registration of land/property was not compulsory throughout UK until c. 1990. If your Mum cannot find the deeds, nor remember who the solicitors were who acted, and indeed they may well be amalgamated into another larger firm by now, then it might be as well to get the probate solicitor to ask one of his property colleagues to sort out the registration and then at least the papers will be in order. The solicitors will have procedures and contacts to find the line of ownership, and i think there has developed the practice of setting in place indemnity insurances (not sure of the detail of that, sorry), should there be any difficulties relating to rights of way, queried boundaries, etc. It is i think possible for you to do this yourself but where to start?! These problems may not arise at all, but the property will have to be registered some time soon, if not for the purposes of completing your Father in Law's probate, then so as to have all papers in order for the future.
It may not be necessary to go back much further than your FIL's ownership, but some formal proof and documentation will be required in order to now register the property.

Crabapple

Registration without any documents is extremely difficult.

Most likely they are with the original mortgage lender as they used to keep the deeds as security.

FreeBear

Crabapple wrote: »

Most likely they are with the original mortgage lender as they used to keep the deeds as security.

Let's hope it wasn't with the Bradford and Bingley who lost a load of deeds through fire in 1998..

Finding the original mortgage co would only be the starting point - Many have closed or merged since the 1950s. Another place to look is the solicitors that drafted the FIL's will (assuming he had one), but depending on how long ago that was, the sols may have been subsumed by another outfit. In both cases, it will take a fair bit of detective work to trace who was taken over and where their archives are located.

For the OP, worth having a read of this - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/first-registration-of-title-where-deeds-have-been-lost-or-destroyed/practice-guide-2-first-registration-of-title-if-deeds-are-lost-or-destroyed

troubleinparadise

Hopefully there might be some useful paperwork filed, or just in a pile.... that's where I found the statements from the building society over several years showing a very small sum being charged, which turned out to be for the safekeeping of the deeds.

I then contacted them and made arrangements for the retrieval of the deeds.

It wasn't difficult nor particularly arduous - I hope your search turns out similarly.