Barclays have lost title deeds to property

nowtsevereasy

Or so we have been infrormed their story changes depending on who you talk to.
To put this matter into context. We inherited late Mother in Laws propery, the property was remortgaged due to divorce and paid off 2004. It went on the market in june and a buyer made a offer, we accepted the offer. And the probate/conveyancing solicitor wrote to barclays requesting a copy of the title deeds. In September Barclays wrote back saying they beilve they had located the deeds and they would be with us shortly....
Nothing happened.
We contacted Barclays directly on sevral occasions to be told diffrent stories. The documents were in the Iron Mountan Storage facility. The documents wern't on file and a manual search had to be done. A employee from the Mortgae dept of Barclays said she couldn't find them.
Our solicotor also contacted HM Land registy. Land registy informed him that the entry disclosed in the Land Charges Search  had not been cancelled.

The issue with   Barclays is that borrowing has been repaid but is still secured by entry at HM Land Registry and in the Land Charges Register.

This has been ongoing for 6 months. 

NottinghamKnight

So there is presumably an entry in the land registry to confirm your relatives ownership but an outstanding charge that has not been cleared by Barclays. They will no doubt blame Covid but raise as a formal complaint which puts them under some time pressure as they ahev to respond/ resolve in 8 weeks. This should push things along but at least means you can go to the FoS after two months and there is a financial pressure on Barclays to resolve this.

nowtsevereasy

I wonder how long Barclays have been aware that tha charge has not been cleared. They have not directly informed us of this our solicotor found this out through conversations with the HM Land registry.
So Barclays are at fault then? I have already raised formal complaint and was contated by a employee by phone who 'promised to get back to me' and has not. 

born_again

Iron Mountain....
Oh I how I loved trying to find the box something had been put in, simply to request it back too us.... One advantage of the computer age. Everything is system based so you no longer waste hours trying to find where something may be....
It will take the complaints team time to get back to you, while they try to track the box they may be in. I would fully expect that Barclays will simply pay for new copies, once they have confirmed they are lost.

Mickey666

If the Barclays charge on the property has not been cleared from the deeds then why have they not been chasing the mortgage payments since 2004?  I'm assuming they haven't, which implies the charge has been cleared.

If the charge was indeed cleared then why would Barclays have kept the deeds anyway?  I don't think they would, which might explain why they can't find them.  It is standard practice to return deeds to the owner once any mortgage charges are cleared, especially now that copies are held at Land Registry as the definitive record of ownership.  So they may not have been 'lost' by Barclays but may have been returned to the owner back in 2004.  Or perhaps to a new lender when the property was 're-mortgaged' (according to the OP).

Seems to me the real issue here is the charge still being on the Land Registry documents.  What will LR need in the way of proof in order to remove the charge?

xylophone

We inherited late Mother in Laws propery, the property was remortgaged due to divorce and paid off 2004.

Your MIL remortgaged with Barclays?

You state with certainty that the loan was repaid in full  so presumably you found documentary proof of this among MIL's papers ( a letter from Barclays perhaps)?

The property (not  merely the charge) is actually registered at the LR and is currently shown with your late MIL as sole proprietor?

If it is registered there is no need for the original paper deeds to be produced?

nowtsevereasy

Yeah sorry context.
Solicitor contatced Barcalys by mail july 2020, recived a letter in september 2020 stating documents may have been found and will be with us shortly. This whole thing has been going on since july and nothing got done till october when we started pushing Barclays ourselves. 
Its now november....
If it was just a case of electroically releasing the charges on the property at the land registy why has it taken so long...dont say covid...Everytime I contact Barclays they spin me a diffrent tale.

jonesMUFCforever

nowtsevereasy said:

Yeah sorry context.
Solicitor contatced Barcalys by mail july 2020, recived a letter in september 2020 stating documents may have been found and will be with us shortly. This whole thing has been going on since july and nothing got done till october when we started pushing Barclays ourselves. 
Its now november....
If it was just a case of electroically releasing the charges on the property at the land registy why has it taken so long...dont say covid...Everytime I contact Barclays they spin me a diffrent tale.

Basically it will be a case of finding a person employed at Barclays who has the guts to authorise the discharge, when in essence he/she won't have a clue.
This is a problem with all banks. Might be time to contact somebody senior at Barclays via e-mail to see if they can stir things up.

nowtsevereasy

Thank you for your replies.
So the 3 months we have been told 'The deeds have not been located' is a load or rubbish. The sale of the house has been held up by petty beurocracy and the fact that of the thousands of Barclays employees none have the authority or gumption to authorise this discharge.

NottinghamKnight

nowtsevereasy said:

Thank you for your replies.
So the 3 months we have been told 'The deeds have not been located' is a load or rubbish. The sale of the house has been held up by petty beurocracy and the fact that of the thousands of Barclays employees none have the authority or gumption to authorise this discharge.

We can't be sure but that may well be correct. Covid has had an effect but it's also a convenient excuse in many cases, I've been waiting for six months for probate on my mother's estate, the only beneficiary is my father who has dementia and is in a home so in some ways it's easier to have things suspended but it's still a large amount of money and property that is simply suspended and earning no return. I'm the only surviving child so it will pass to me in time.

xylophone

I've been waiting for six months for probate on my mother's estate, the only beneficiary is my father 

A valid will for a simple estate and you have been waiting six months for the Grant?

Why? Have you made enquiries?