House Deeds - when property is owned outright....

[PriorityOne]

Hi everyone...

 

When a mortgage is paid off in full, the bank/building society remove their charge from the Land Registry and send the Deeds to the owner (as I understand it).

 

1. Would those Deeds now show the name of the owner or, are they simply Deeds to show the history of owners up until that point; prior to when it was purchased?

 

2. Does anything need to be updated with the Land Registry by the owner or, would that be done automatically when the charge was removed by the bank/building society?

 

3. If everything is recorded at the Land Registry, how important are actual Deeds in terms of keeping them at home? I'm assuming they should be kept with a bank/solicitor.... but need to understand the real risk in terms of any loss/destruction/theft.

 

Thanks in advance...

[honeybee13]

Hi P1. Have you looked at the Land Registry website? It looks fairly comprehensive.

 

Fwiw, our lender returned the title deeds a while back even though we still owed money. From memory, they do name all the owners and ours have the original auction poster from when the house was sold which was interesting. We keep them in a safety deposit box. I did hear once that some lenders will keep deeds for you if you owe £1, but that was a while back and life may have changed.

 

My best, HB

[PriorityOne]

Thanks HB...

 

I've checked out the Land Registry website but there seems to be a fee for everything. I'm just trying to find out if the owner's name would be on there prior to the lender returning the Deeds once the mortgage was paid off.... or if the owner would need to request to have themselves added to the Deeds. I can't imagine that's what would happen but was seeing if anyone else knew for sure.

 

I didn't think they would return Deeds if you still owed money.... that's interesting.

 

[greigster]

When we paid off our mortgage, the solicitor gave us all the past title deeds which was very interesting as our cottage dates back to mid 1700s. The deed to all houses are now stored as electronic data with the land registry and in general paper title documents are often given back to the present owners. My solicitor told us that often parts of the deeds of any historic interest is given to local museums. Your name was always on the deeds from the time of purchase. The Bank only had a charge on the property (a notifiable interest), which will have been removed and the land registry data updated. A lot less paperwork to store.

[PriorityOne]

When we paid off our mortgage, the solicitor gave us all the past title deeds which was very interesting as our cottage dates back to mid 1700s. The deed to all houses are now stored as electronic data with the land registry and in general paper title documents are often given back to the present owners. My solicitor told us that often parts of the deeds of any historic interest is given to local museums. Your name was always on the deeds from the time of purchase. The Bank only had a charge on the property (a notifiable interest), which will have been removed and the land registry data updated. A lot less paperwork to store.

 

Thank you. I was just about to update this thread when I say you'd responded.

 

Yes, the name is already on there and a form was sent out by the building society, which had to be completed and forwarded to the Land Registry before they'd release the Deeds. LR then removed the charge, posted the updated Deeds out; reflecting Absolute Ownership.....

 

So there will always be an electronic record of ownership at the LR, which seems a much more secure system in cases of loss, theft, fraud and so on....

 

Does this mean that it's still essential to safeguard them with solicitors, banks (not likely..... lol!) or in a safety deposit box, as was mentioned earlier? My Mum used to keep hers under the chair in the bedroom and I can remember being horrified by it at the time.

[greigster]

In my opinion, the old paper deeds have been superseded by the safer data version held by the land registry, and of course important documents held by government departments never get lost. lol

I keep all my paper deeds in the loft.

[PriorityOne]

In my opinion, the old paper deeds have been superseded by the safer data version held by the land registry, and of course important documents held by government departments never get lost. lol

I keep all my paper deeds in the loft.

 

There's a lot of sense in that.... I certainly wouldn't trust the banks with them!!

[honeybee13]

Make that safe deposit box, don't know why I typed that yesterday. Do you have your answer now, P1?

 

My best, HB

[PriorityOne]

Yes.... thank you HB....

[johnhowell]

Hi everyone...

 

When a mortgage is paid off in full, the bank/building society remove their charge from the Land Registry and send the Deeds to the owner (as I understand it).

 

1. Would those Deeds now show the name of the owner or, are they simply Deeds to show the history of owners up until that point; prior to when it was purchased?

 

2. Does anything need to be updated with the Land Registry by the owner or, would that be done automatically when the charge was removed by the bank/building society?

 

3. If everything is recorded at the Land Registry, how important are actual Deeds in terms of keeping them at home? I'm assuming they should be kept with a bank/solicitor.... but need to understand the real risk in terms of any loss/destruction/theft.

 

Thanks in advance...

 

When you initially purchased the property you would have been recorded as Proprietor to the Title of the property. The mortgage lender would have placed a charge against the property - recorded at HMLR. Once the mortgage is paid up, then the mortgage lender would have their charge removed from the Title at HMLR, morethanlikely a fee charged to you. But you was alsways the owner (proprietor).

 

Nothing more needs to be done. HMLR may send you confirmation - I received confirmation when I sold my property 4-5 years ago.

 

I strongly recommend that you keep safely the Deed Pack that you should receive from the lender. The electronic version held at HMLR can be a very truncated version of the original "deeds", they only transcribe the bits they are interested in, they "CAD-ify" the original deed plans to the latest Ordnance Survey base map. The original plans and deeds can contain more useful information that you may not find on the HMLR version - eg the T or H marks on boundary features...

 

All the best

John

[PriorityOne]

When you initially purchased the property you would have been recorded as Proprietor to the Title of the property. The mortgage lender would have placed a charge against the property - recorded at HMLR. Once the mortgage is paid up, then the mortgage lender would have their charge removed from the Title at HMLR, morethanlikely a fee charged to you. But you was alsways the owner (proprietor).

 

Nothing more needs to be done. HMLR may send you confirmation - I received confirmation when I sold my property 4-5 years ago.

 

I strongly recommend that you keep safely the Deed Pack that you should receive from the lender. The electronic version held at HMLR can be a very truncated version of the original "deeds", they only transcribe the bits they are interested in, they "CAD-ify" the original deed plans to the latest Ordnance Survey base map. The original plans and deeds can contain more useful information that you may not find on the HMLR version - eg the T or H marks on boundary features...

 

All the best

John

 

Hi John,

 

Things are a lot clearer than they were yesterday. I agree that HMLR taking a copy of the actual Deeds might be difficult because they're not a standard shape for starters!