Obtaining Title Deeds

JoeJ46

I purchased my apartment in 2013 and have just paid off my mortgage.  I asked the bank for my title deeds and they advised they no longer keep them and that they will be with my solicitor.  My solicitor has retired but his business has been taken over by a local arm of the practice.  They advise that they need to get my file out of storage to see if they have the Title Deeds and want to charge me £120 for the privilege.  Do I have to pay that?  And in the event that the solicitors do not have the Title Deeds, any ideas where they might be held?  My thanks.

Tiglet2

If you just want a copy of the updated title deeds showing that the charge has been removed, then you can obtain this yourself for £3 here https://eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/eservices/FindAProperty/view/QuickEnquiryInit.do?_ga=2.142487922.1576341826.1616492841-528919260.1607119620
If, however, you want all the old deeds, conveyances, transfers dating back from when the property was built, I guess you will have to pay the £120 if the solicitor is demanding.  This is their fee for allocating the time for a member of staff to go and look for the file in their storage facility.  The time is spent whether or not they actually have the deeds.  So, if they do not have them, who is likely to?

davidmcn

They can charge a reasonable admin fee, £120 sounds OTT especially if they're not sure whether they even have anything.

But as above, what exactly do you think you need? The registered title is what is on the Land Registry's computer, so if you want the warm fuzzy feeling of having your own title deeds, download them and print them out!

It's possible the solicitors will have had copies of planning permissions, NHBC warranties etc depending on the property, but you can get those elsewhere if you really want them. Or you might have copies in your own paperwork from the purchase.

AdrianC

Deeds are not relevant in today's world, and haven't been for decades. They are of historical interest. For a vaguely modern property, they will never even have existed.

Having bought in 2013, your property is definitely registered at LR. That is your title record, not a piece of easily-lost or -damaged paper.

davidmcn

Mickey666 said:

around 50% of all property in Scotland is unregistered, so physical deeds remain the legal instrument of ownership in those cases. 

It's a substantially lower proportion of residential properties than 50% which are "unregistered" in Scotland, will be more by land area because of the farms/massive rural estates which are not yet on the Land Register. But an important distinction from England is that "not on the Land Register" in Scotland means "on the Register of Sasines", so copies of the deeds are readily available - just takes a bit more effort/cost to get and make sense of them.

[Deleted User]

AdrianC said:

Deeds are not relevant in today's world, and haven't been for decades. They are of historical interest. For a vaguely modern property, they will never even have existed.

Having bought in 2013, your property is definitely registered at LR. That is your title record, not a piece of easily-lost or -damaged paper.

I've seen the title deeds registry (for want of a better term) for our area and there are several unregistered houses that have never changed hands that won't appear until they are sold