Remortgage deeds issue

Dongleberry

Hi all,

We are up for remortgaging our house, we arranged a good deal back in July going from Bank A to Bank B. Bank B's solicitors and myself had been chasing Bank A for the deeds to the house for the last 3 months to complete the deal, Bank A finally got back to us last month to say they never received our deeds when we bought the house and that they are with our original solicitors. So because of the delay we are still with Bank A and at a higher rate (an extra £300 a month), we can't move until they get the deeds. So now we have been chasing our original solicitor for the last month to get the deeds sent to the new bank. They finally got back to us 2 weeks ago saying the deeds have been sent to the new solicitor via recorded royal mail. I have rung and emailed over 15 times to try and get a tracking number, and finally got a tracking number which is not recognised. It looks like they have lost our deeds. If we don't get this sorted by December we will not be able to afford the new rate.

If we get hit with another month of a higher rate is there anything I can do to get compensation? Should my original solicitor have sent the deeds to our original bank in the first place as we did pay them for a service and I thought this was a requirement?

Thanks
Kevin

tifo

After 2004 most banks did not keep deeds, they'd send them to the mortgagee(s). You may have a complaint against the original solicitors if the deed wasn't sent to the bank but you seem not to have suffered any losses from it. Whether it was with the bank or not hasn't made a difference to you.

It's odd that the deeds have got lost in delivery as solicitors use the very secure DX delivery network. You may have a complaint for losses.

kingstreet

Northern Ireland by any chance?

Dongleberry

kingstreet said:

Northern Ireland by any chance?

Yes, Northern Ireland. 

tifo said:

After 2004 most banks did not keep deeds, they'd send them to the mortgagee(s). You may have a complaint against the original solicitors if the deed wasn't sent to the bank but you seem not to have suffered any losses from it. Whether it was with the bank or not hasn't made a difference to you.

It's odd that the deeds have got lost in delivery as solicitors use the very secure DX delivery network. You may have a complaint for losses.

We have losses, we are paying a rate of 5.24% now with our bank because our 2 years are up, whereas if we had of moved to the new bank last month it would be 1.75%. 

Not sure why they posted something so important via royal mail instead of DX, they really don't seem to care. I am requesting that the new solicitor to consider our deeds lost and ask them to process our mortgage based on our land registry record. 

I don't know what else I can do. This is all down to the original solicitor.