Deeds to House

bettydaviseyes

I have a query which hopefully someone can answer.  My mum passed away in August and we finally received grant of probate beginning of Dec.  We have just sold (stc) mums house and we have realised that the deeds are held in a bank.  The deeds are in mums name - do we need to get them from the bank and transferred to our name before sale completion or would the grant of probate cover it?

Keep_pedalling

You should be able to get a copy from the land registry provided that the house has been registed with them.

https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-property-and-land/copies-of-deeds

thegreenone

I would contact the bereavement dept of the bank and ask for the deeds to be released to your nearest branch or the solicitors/conveyancer.   You do not need to transfer the deeds to your name. 

Brie

Did your mom still have a mortgage of any sort?  Or anything else owed to the bank??  

Keep_pedalling

Brie said:

Did your mom still have a mortgage of any sort?  Or anything else owed to the bank??  

I think in the past people used to keep £1 outstanding and the lender would keep the deeds, which meant there was still a restriction registered on the property, so the OP should contact the bank to to clear any outstanding issues like this.

bettydaviseyes

Mum didnt have a mortgage it was paid off in the early 80’s and she owed nothing to the bank or anyone.  The deeds are held at the Halifax deed vault? I think and I remember now mum saying something years ago about £1. I will call the Halifax on Monday, although I cant find anything on Halifax web site about deeds enquiries.  Hopefully they are quicker than my bank at answering the phone -last time I was on hold for over 50 minutes.

p00hsticks

bettydaviseyes said:

Mum didnt have a mortgage it was paid off in the early 80’s and she owed nothing to the bank or anyone.  The deeds are held at the Halifax deed vault? I think and I remember now mum saying something years ago about £1. I will call the Halifax on Monday, although I cant find anything on Halifax web site about deeds enquiries.  Hopefully they are quicker than my bank at answering the phone -last time I was on hold for over 50 minutes.

As Keep_pedalling says, have you checked whether the property is registered with the Land Registry ?

https://www.gov.uk/search-property-information-land-registry

If it is then the deeds are interesting but won't be needed to complete the sale...

bettydaviseyes

Have jp00hsticks said:

bettydaviseyes said:

Mum didnt have a mortgage it was paid off in the early 80’s and she owed nothing to the bank or anyone.  The deeds are held at the Halifax deed vault? I think and I remember now mum saying something years ago about £1. I will call the Halifax on Monday, although I cant find anything on Halifax web site about deeds enquiries.  Hopefully they are quicker than my bank at answering the phone -last time I was on hold for over 50 minutes.

As Keep_pedalling says, have you checked whether the property is registered with the Land Registry ?

https://www.gov.uk/search-property-information-land-registry

If it is then the deeds are interesting but won't be needed to complete the sale...

Have just checked - it says “we have found one property record” then it says we can purchase the title register and title plan.  Presumably that means we wont need to contact the Halifax now?  

BooJewels

I've just done this with my own parents' house which is now almost sold.  They had what my Dad called 'a 50p mortgage' to hold the deeds (BS referred to it as a 'nominal mortgage') - it hasn't been registered with the Land Registry, as it last changed hands in 1968.  

I was already registered on the Building Society account under a Power of Attorney (as I foresaw a potential need for it)  - but as soon as we put the house on sale, I applied for the release of the Deeds and I settled the £1.26 balance (just by debit card over the phone) on the mortgage - I think I had to send a copy of the death certificate and the Grant of Probate.  I had to fill in a form and they released the Deeds to either me (or the solicitor, but I wanted to look at them, out of curiosity) and they include a legal document that says they no longer have a charge on the property - this is needed for the sale.  The solicitor offered to do this bit for me, but her fee was disproportionate to the ease with which I sorted it myself.

You don't need to register the property in your own name, the Grant of Probate is your authority to sell the property on behalf of the original legal owners and the new buyer will do their own registration.

I would suggest starting with the Bereavement Team at the bank, they're generally more sensitive and tend to answer faster too - they may not be able to help, but may be able to give you a direct number or transfer you to the right people internally.

ETA:  Apologies, I see you've perhaps sorted this whilst I was typing, so my advice is moot - but I'll leave it here in case it helps anyone else reading.

Flugelhorn

bettydaviseyes said:

Have jp00hsticks said:

bettydaviseyes said:

Mum didnt have a mortgage it was paid off in the early 80’s and she owed nothing to the bank or anyone.  The deeds are held at the Halifax deed vault? I think and I remember now mum saying something years ago about £1. I will call the Halifax on Monday, although I cant find anything on Halifax web site about deeds enquiries.  Hopefully they are quicker than my bank at answering the phone -last time I was on hold for over 50 minutes.

As Keep_pedalling says, have you checked whether the property is registered with the Land Registry ?

https://www.gov.uk/search-property-information-land-registry

If it is then the deeds are interesting but won't be needed to complete the sale...

Have just checked - it says “we have found one property record” then it says we can purchase the title register and title plan.  Presumably that means we wont need to contact the Halifax now?  

if it is the right property and hence it has been registered with the LR then that is all you need, the old paper deeds became irrelevant when that was done. 

bettydaviseyes

Thank you BooJewels - not moot at all, as all advice is much appreciated.