Solicitors have lost title deeds

EdGasket

In 1999 my sister purchased a property. The solicitors that acted for her retained the Title Deeds 'for safe keeping'. Fast forward 18 years and my sister would like to take possession of the deeds and to cut a long story short, the solicitors have 'lost' them. They told her she can download them from the Land registry. The title is registered and in her name so my question is, if she obtains an 'official copy' of the register using form OC1 (costs £7), is that as good as the original Title Deeds for all practical purposes? If so it hardly seems worth making a song and dance about the Solicitors 'losing' the original.

silvercar

Not sure that the solicitors have lost them or that they are registered on line so no need to retain them.

Either way if they are registered at Land Registry that is all you need.

Mojisola

EdGasket wrote: »

In 1999 my sister purchased a property.

The solicitors that acted for her retained the Title Deeds 'for safe keeping'.

Unless you specifically ask for the original deeds to be sent back to you, the LA destroys them once the property is registered with them.

Did your sister tell the solicitors that she wanted them to ask for the paper copies to be returned from the LR?

AdrianC

For any property registered with LR, the deeds are only useful for historical interest. There is an outside chance that they may contain some edge-case information about covenants or boundaries, which did not get recorded on the LR entry, but the primary record of her ownership is the LR registration.

G_M

EdGasket wrote: »

...... if she obtains an 'official copy' of the register using form OC1 (costs £7), is that as good as the original Title Deeds for all practical purposes?

Yes.

It's an 'Official Copy' of the electronic registration of the title.

The 'original Title Deeds' held by the solicitor is .....an 'Official Copy' of the electronic registration of the title.

Unless of course by ' original Title Deeds' you are referring to documents pre-dating the registration ie earlier conveyances- these only have legal value if they contain covenants which

a) still bind the property and
b) are not also held by the land registry.

EdGasket

Mojisola wrote: »

Did your sister tell the solicitors that she wanted them to ask for the paper copies to be returned from the LR?

She has a letter from the solicitor at the time of purchase confirming that he has the updated title deeds and is keeping them for 'safe keeping'.

I gather an official copy is just as good from the replies, thank you all.