Help needed re tracking down Royal Insurance contact!!!

Hinch71

Hi everyone - I posted this on the Mortgage forum area earlier today, and they suggested that there are some great detective skills available here in the Pensions group, so it was worth sharing here too. If anyone can help I'd be so grateful! For clarity, the pension side of things is now sorted - she did get a widows pension from Royal Insurance, but that was fairly easy to sort out as it's managed by RSA now and they seemed to be very familiar with dealing with ex-Royal Insurance pensions. Plus I had the reference number from her bank statement so that helped a lot! Anyway, original message is below... thanks in advance :-)

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Hi folks, I really hope someone who reads this can help.  
Sadly, my mum passed away last year and we're now having to manage her estate. My dad died almost 40 years ago in a car accident, very unexpectedly as you can imagine. At the time, he worked for Royal Insurance in quite a senior role, and we'd only fairly recently moved to the house were were living in after moving several hundred miles following his promotion to that new position. He must have had some sort of endowment policy as the mortgage was settled in full as a result of his untimely death.

Roll forwards 40 years, and it turns out Royal Insurance still have a claim on the deeds for mum's house! (sorry I'm not sure of the correct term) We've pieced together from the deeds that Royal Insurance must have effectively bought the house initially, until my parents had sold their old one and were able to officially buy the new property at which point the deeds were transferred to my parents names. But for some reason Royal Insurance's claim was never removed from the mortgage. The address on the deeds is their Registered Office at the time, and states it as 'One North John Street, Liverpool'.

The challenge is that Royal Insurance don't exist anymore! And neither RSA or Phoenix (who I've already tried) can be of much help. This is a very non-standard query after all! I don't believe Royal Insurance were ever a mortgage provider?... this was perhaps a very individual arrangement by them as my dad's employer to help him move to the new location until he'd sold our old house. And the helplines I call are all about life policies and pensions, and understandably the Advisors I speak to haven't got a clue how to help.

Can anyone either suggest how I can find the right person to talk to, or suggest another route to take? I'm wondering if there's a process where we can challenge the situation with the Land Registry themselves perhaps??? Mum's house is in Scotland, if that information is helpful.

Sorry for long post, I hope someone can help. As you can imagine, this is adding further stress to an already emotional time.

Thanks :-)

Croeso69

Royal Insurance merged with Sun Alliance in 1996 to become RSA.

The life company administration was sold off to UISL (Unisys) in 2003 and was sold to Tata in 2010 and became Diligenta in Liverpool.

The life insurance part of the company itself was renamed Phoenix in 2005 and was sold to Britannic in 2007 and the both became Resolution plc. This was renamed Phoenix plc a few years later.

The general insurance part of the business was retained by RSA.

Not sure how much help this is to you though.

Hinch71

Thanks @Croeso69 - I knew about RSA and Phoenix, but I've spoken to several people there and nobody's had a clue how to direct my call. I need to find someone who has anything to do with employee benefits/mortgages I guess, but it's so long ago now goodness knows where that paperwork was handed off to during the various mergers etc. I have a feeling this isn't going to be easy!

Marcon

From what you've said, the correct term is likely to be 'charge' over the property. As you've already found, ringing various people, none of whom is going to have access to archived filing (which could well be in hard copy, given how long ago this occurred), is unlikely to help. I suggest you do two things, preferably by e-mail or failing that by letter: write to the Land Registry and explain what you believe has happened and ask if they have any suggestions (unlikely, but you always worth a go - but remember you aren't 'challenging' them, you are asking for help); and write to RSA (registered office unless you believe you have a more useful address), again explaining what you think has happened and again, asking for their help.

Hinch71

Thanks @Marcon - I think writing to the Land Registry is a great idea. And yes, I'd very much be seeking their help rather than complaining about anything or getting heavy with them.

As for writing to RSA, our conveyancer has written to them twice and also tried calling, but hasn't heard anything at all in return. So we've already tried that line of enquiry. I agree that writing to Land Registry is probably the best next step. I'll look for an email address. Many thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to reply :-) 

xylophone

Is the property on the Sasine Register?
https://www.ros.gov.uk/our-registers/general-register-of-sasines

Since the 1870s, properties in the sasine register have had chronological lists of deeds called search sheets.

Search sheets provide:

• a description of the title
• current and previous owners' names
• all recorded deeds that affect the title
• current and previous mortgage entries
• the price paid for each transfer or sale of the title

Hinch71

Hi @xylophone - that’s a new one for me! I’ve not heard of the Sasine Register before. It looks as though it’s £24 to ask them to do a search, which I’m happy to do if it’ll be helpful. Do you mind me asking why you’ve suggested it? Do you think it might shed a bit of further light on things?

One thing I haven’t mentioned up until now is that, curiously, mum was able to re-mortgage for a small amount in the late 90’s, with Abbey National. I’m a bit puzzled as to how that was able to happen, considering the Royal still had a charge on the property!? But it definitely did. I’m wondering if it might be worth talking to Abbey and asking if perhaps something was done then to ‘undo’ the charge Royal had on the house, but for some reason that’s not in with the deeds?

It’s just as well I love a challenge isn’t it?! ;-) 

MovingForwards

Sasine Register holds information on properties up here, as does Registers of Scotland.

https://www.ros.gov.uk/services/search-property-information

The Land Registry will not be of any use to you as it covers properties in England and Wales, your mom's property is in Scotland.

Marcon

Hinch71 said:

One thing I haven’t mentioned up until now is that, curiously, mum was able to re-mortgage for a small amount in the late 90’s, with Abbey National. I’m a bit puzzled as to how that was able to happen, considering the Royal still had a charge on the property!? But it definitely did. I’m wondering if it might be worth talking to Abbey and asking if perhaps something was done then to ‘undo’ the charge Royal had on the house, but for some reason that’s not in with the deeds?

It’s just as well I love a challenge isn’t it?! ;-) 

It's likely that Abbey National put a second charge on the property and lent on that basis because they were satisfied that the equity in the house would cover them should your mum default on her mortgage and the house sold to pay off both charges. It's certainly worth contacting them to see if they have any records relating to this just in case anything helpful pops out of the woodwork.

I think it's worth contacting the Land Registry despite the property being in Scotland, simply because they may have met a similar issue before (unlikely but possible). They do, after all, have many more properties registered with them than their friends in Scotland.

Another very long shot is contacting the people responsible for administering the old Royal Insurance pension scheme, explaining your issue, and asking if they'd be willing to put a note in the next newsletter (assuming they issue such things to pensioners, and it's quite likely they do) asking if any pensioners just happen to know anything about historic employee benefits...If your dad died in the early 1980s, then there's an outside chance that someone who was old enough to be working in that area of the business is still alive today.

xylophone

Do you mind me asking why you’ve suggested it? Do you think it might shed a bit of further light on things?

Search sheets provide:

• a description of the title
• current and previous owners' names
• all recorded deeds that affect the title
• current and previous mortgage entries
• the price paid for each transfer or sale of the title
  
  

Croeso69

Marcon said:

Hinch71 said:

One thing I haven’t mentioned up until now is that, curiously, mum was able to re-mortgage for a small amount in the late 90’s, with Abbey National. I’m a bit puzzled as to how that was able to happen, considering the Royal still had a charge on the property!? But it definitely did. I’m wondering if it might be worth talking to Abbey and asking if perhaps something was done then to ‘undo’ the charge Royal had on the house, but for some reason that’s not in with the deeds?

It’s just as well I love a challenge isn’t it?! ;-) 

It's likely that Abbey National put a second charge on the property and lent on that basis because they were satisfied that the equity in the house would cover them should your mum default on her mortgage and the house sold to pay off both charges. It's certainly worth contacting them to see if they have any records relating to this just in case anything helpful pops out of the woodwork.

I think it's worth contacting the Land Registry despite the property being in Scotland, simply because they may have met a similar issue before (unlikely but possible). They do, after all, have many more properties registered with them than their friends in Scotland.

Another very long shot is contacting the people responsible for administering the old Royal Insurance pension scheme, explaining your issue, and asking if they'd be willing to put a note in the next newsletter (assuming they issue such things to pensioners, and it's quite likely they do) asking if any pensioners just happen to know anything about historic employee benefits...If your dad died in the early 1980s, then there's an outside chance that someone who was old enough to be working in that area of the business is still alive today.

The Royal Insurance pension scheme (RIGPS) is administered by Willis Towers Watson

Tel 01737 227 547

Keith Greenfield is definitely from the right era (a nice bloke too) so you could do worse than contact him at the address below ...