Deeds never existed

MiniEggs

Hi All

My father has recently passed away and I am in the thick of trying to sort out his estate

One issue that has perplexed me that I have almost reached the end of the road on bar a 1% chance visit to my local Halifax

The family home is not registered with the Land Registry and having looked everywhere (and I do mean everywhere)  there are no sign of any deeds and the two solicitors that would have been involved have no record of the conveyance

The house was built by my Grandfather and bought off him by my father using a Halifax mortgage in 1968

The house has not been sold since

The only document I have is the Halifax mortgage deed

Due to the father son relationship do you think there is any chance Halifax would have created a mortgage without a title deed back in the late 60's ? I believe you don't actually technically need title deeds to sell a house, you just have to prove you own it and the buyer be comfortable with that.

I'm probably just going to have to apply to the Land Registry for first registration using only the mortgage deed as evidence. 

Does anyone know if that will be enough to get an Absolute Title or am I going to have to suffer trying to sell it with a Possessory Title assuming I can get that ?

Thanks in advance

HobgoblinBT

Is there a clue on the Halifax mortgage deed?  

I worked in the local securities centre for a high street bank in the early 1990s and recall preparing and checking lists of documents making up the chain of title.   

Is the property freehold or leasehold?  This will be referenced on the charge firm(mortgage deed).

Look for the typed or hand written parts of the Halifax legal charge form (mortgage deed) which might give a clue to the chain of title.   

Has the legal charge been discharged? If so by whom and when?  

Is there reference to a firm of solicitors who may have any other documents in their storage?

Was the plot part for the property part of a larger plot, possibly also owned by your grandfather?  

Hope this helps

[Deleted User]

Ask for a run of transactions on the mortgage from Halifax.  If at any point the balance was static at £125 then this would show that the account was held in Deedstore.  It was a service offered to clients with open mortgages to hold their deeds for them in a secure vault.  If £125 is showing then Halifax had the deeds at some point

Land_Registry

You say you should follow the guidance provided in our PG2 as you will need to make enquiries which will definitely include Halifax 
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/first-registration-of-title-where-deeds-have-been-lost-or-destroyed

Only Halifax would be able to tell you what they lent against re proof of title. They must have had ‘something’. And what happened to it from their records?
Its highly unlikely that you’d get Absolute title. Possessory titles don’t make you ‘suffer’ and are more common than you may realise. They will often add a cost, re indemnity insurance, to the sale but that’s not usually onerous. Certainly not as onerous as if you tried to sell it unregistered 

MiniEggs

Thanks for all the replies

It is freehold

It was paid off in 1980

Neither the solicitor mentioned on the mortgage deed or the one who I believe to be my grandfathers solicitor has any record of the conveyance in 1968

I will try my local Halifax branch tomorrow but beyond someone tapping a few keys  for ten seconds I doubt they will be able to search back more than a few years let alone over fifty

@Land_Registry is an email from the solicitors saying they can't find anything on the conveyance going to be enough from that side of my efforts

Land_Registry

MiniEggs said:

Thanks for all the replies

It is freehold

It was paid off in 1980

Neither the solicitor mentioned on the mortgage deed or the one who I believe to be my grandfathers solicitor has any record of the conveyance in 1968

I will try my local Halifax branch tomorrow but beyond someone tapping a few keys  for ten seconds I doubt they will be able to search back more than a few years let alone over fifty

@Land_Registry is an email from the solicitors saying they can't find anything on the conveyance going to be enough from that side of my efforts

As you say Halifax aren’t likely to have much. And even less so other than confirming paid off in 1980. But you need that detail. 

An email is fine to confirm the search efforts made and outcomes. PG 2 explains what we are going to require re the lost deeds and efforts made to find them . Please do read it and consider using a conveyancer to assist/advise as appropriate also 

theoretica

Was the house built on a stand alone plot of land or in the garden of another property or such?  If it was split from a larger property has that property been registered?  It would be a useful indication that someone won't turn up with deeds for both still combined.

MiniEggs

@Land_Registry
I've drawn a blank with Halifax and had a fairly automated letter quoting six years and DPA etc. I will have one more go with them in writing rather than email but I don't hold out much hope
The house is semi detached  and I've paid for a copy of the title of the other half
I was sold by my Grandfather almost a year earlier in 1967 to the first owners
The current owners bought it in 1992 and at that point it seems to have been registered Title Absolute with the LR so I assume they must have had deeds.
Doesn't really help me I guess, there is one curiosity. The charges register bit last item is just the name and address of Lloyds Bank with 2008 date. Does that just mean the might have chosen to lodge theirs with the bank 16 years after buying it or perhaps re-mortgage ?