STOLEN DEEDS

newsgroupmonkey_

Bookworm105 said:

if the house is registered with the Land Registry then paper deeds are not required to legally complete a sale

your solicitor may however want sight of them as LR records do not necessarily record every possible covenant that would be set out in the deeds and therefore the buyer may, quite reasonably, be wanting to know if there any. In the absence of such paperwork it is the down to the buyer if they want to take to risk to complete the legal purchase without fully knowing any potential exposure they may face as new legal owner.

if the property is not registered with the Land Registry (or Scottish equivalent etc) then you cannot legally sell the house without having them

Where are my title deeds, and do I need them? – HM Land Registry

That's not quite true about legally selling.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/first-registration-of-title-where-deeds-have-been-lost-or-destroyed

But it's definitely more difficult.

Herzlos

Hammy21 said:

My sibling stole the deeds to my brothers house when he died, we do not speak as I would not sell the house to their family for half the price. So they took the deeds from the house.

Given it seems like a pretty clear theft, you could involve the police on the non-emergency number.

Whilst it might not go anywhere, having the police ask for them may get sibling to hand them over, or at least get you a crime reference as backup later.

What would sibling want to return the deeds? The cheap house sale? Given the fact the relationship has already broken down, can you promise them the sale on condition that the deeds need to be given to the solicitor first, then change your mind once in posession?

Hammy21

Hi all,

You are right we did not need the original deeds, i ordered copies from the land registry. However my solicitor said that becuase we didnt have the original deeds, they had to do a lot more searches for them with the varios banks and do further checks such as mortgage checks etc, so it ended up costing us a lot more on solicitor fees to sell the property as we had to take out insurance on behalf of the buyer etc. So just so everyone knows, you can sell with the land registry copies, but it will cost you more.

newsgroupmonkey_

Have you mentioned this theft to the Police?

Hammy21

no point because they will just deny it, they also stole 15K in cash from the house, but i have no proof, i new the deceased was saving they told me how much they had

Herzlos

Most criminals will just deny it, it's still worth filing because at least that'll give you a crime reference number should it ever come up.

It sounds like you no longer need the deeds though so maybe it's a moot point.