House Deeds

Fur156

Hi all.

Just a quick question.

Once you have paid off a mortgage, who keeps hold of the deeds ??
Do the banks send them to you, or are you charged a sum of money for the banks to keep them safe ????

Sorry for this, but I really would like and I suppose really need to know.

Thanks.

utterbar

Up to you really, the bank will keep them if you pay a fee. If the property is registered with the land registry the deeds are somewhat redundant anyway.

cornerstone13

There are a number of threads around on this already and answers range from one chap who buried his in the garden on the basis that was the safest place (in a watertight container of course) and gave a map to his nearest and dearest; others put theirs in fire proof containers in various places round the house. As utterbar says, as long as the property is registered with Land Registry, they have no real use, other than sentimental or historical.

We keep our originals at home and my sister keeps certified copies at her house, on the assumption that one set would remain safe whatever happens.

Banks will charge upwards of £20 a year

dweeby

Until we sold our house in December, I used to keep ours in an envelope on top of the wardrobe. Its not like if someone stole the deeds, your house is theirs (I don't think?)!!

Its the land registry records that count, although if you did loose the deeds and tried to sell your home - it'd create problems.

allan673

i was under the impression that house deeds were a thing of the past and they were stored electronically?
im in the process of remortgaging, and when i rang them up i asked if the deeds got transferred to them - thats when they said they were stored electronically now.
(so what happens when i pay my house off? are they printed off and sent to me? im confused too now)

wriggly

If a transaction occurs on your deeds (transfer of title, removal of charge, etc), the land registry will take the opportunity to dematerialise your deeds. Essentially, this involves registering the salient contents of the title deeds onto their computer system, and generally destroying the physical documents.

After that, you will obtain a title deed which is essentially 1 or more A4 pages and is essentially a printout of their computer record. This is all that is required in future transactions. (Edit: it is not actually essential to keep this document secure - anyone who needs access will obtain a copy from the land registry to ensure it is the latest official copy).

However, if your deeds have not had any transactions over the past few years (since about 2003, I think), the documents are still important for proving ownership, and you should know where they are. If you have a mortgage, typically that will be with your mortgager.

Cliff_top

The current land registry requirements- all digitized no longer need all the old papers any more.- but if someone had them, it wouldn't be that easy to 'steal' the house from you due to the safeguards in place.
We just sold 2 houses last year. Halifax had been holding the old deeds to one of them. When the deeds were released and sent to our solicitors, all that was there were a few 'new' printouts showing the land registry details and an XLS type sheet with the last few changes of owner etc. Any really old details/papers had been trashed.

The current place we have still had the deeds with the sellers solicitor so many old documents going back to 1900 were still there.

There should be no need to use the bank/solicitor to hold the deeds any more. Solicitors will hold them without doing anything to them, banks etc seem to rationalise it all and will digitize just the bits they need. For more modern houses it doesn't matter, but as a historical data record of a 17thC cottage, they shouldn't really be destroying deeds like that.

Fur156

Hi All.
Many thanks for all your advice and know how.....

givememoney

Hi

We have lived in our house since 1979 and we have paid the mortgage and have the deeds in our possession.

My friend said we should store them with a bank/solicitor for safe keeping but reading what has been said here that isn't necessarily necessary.

• As we haven't moved for so many years will our house be registered with the Land Registry electronically?
• Will that have been done when the mortgage was paid up(2004)?
• Or do we have to find out and if so how do we do it?

Thanks

Noz

givememoney wrote: »

Hi

We have lived in our house since 1979 and we have paid the mortgage and have the deeds in our possession.

My friend said we should store them with a bank/solicitor for safe keeping but reading what has been said here that isn't necessarily necessary.

• As we haven't moved for so many years will our house be registered with the Land Registry electronically?
• Will that have been done when the mortgage was paid up(2004)?
• Or do we have to find out and if so how do we do it?

Thanks

http://www.landreg.gov.uk/register_dev/service/

givememoney

Thanks Noz

I have looked at the website and are even more perplexed.

This is what comes up when I put in my Title numberTenure:FreeholdPrice Paid/
Value Stated Data:Sorry, there is no price paid/value stated information available for this property.Items available from the Land Registry:TypeDatePriceBuyTitle register ([URL="javascript: window.open('/lro/resources/example_register.pdf','registerpdf'); void(0)"]example[/URL]) (see register)£3.00Title plan ([URL="javascript: window.open('/lro/resources/example_title_plan.pdf','titlepdf'); void(0)"]example[/URL]) (see plan)£3.00Total:£0.00

I assume then it is registered (am I right?), so does that mean the deeds are surplus to requirements and I don't have to have them put with a bank/solicitor.

Sorry I am not very clever with this.