Title Deeds - where are they?

Building society usually holds them until mortgage paid off them it’s your choice for them to keep or you to keep,

We got our deeds when the mortgage was paid off, but it’s easy to apply to Land Registry for another set - costs about £15.

If you had a mortgage, the lender may be keeping them safe for you. Nationwide did this for us, if I recall correctly £1 was left outstanding in order to do so. Other mortgage lenders return the deeds to you, others may notify you that the deeds are being held digitally.

I would think they are with whoever you pay your mortgage to. If your mortgage is paid off then they maybe held digitally at the Land Registry.

Generally houses do not have deeds these days, those that have them, they are interesting but, I think, no longer legal.

Registering properties with the land registry came in 1925, but has only been compulsory since 1980, although most properties were registered when it was voluntary. Now that registering with the Land Registry is compulsory All properties now have all legal transactions, including buying selling, charges on the property (eg a mortgage) registered at the Land Registery.

The one exception would be if your home hadn't changed hands since 1980. There is a small chance that it might not yet be registered, in which case you might need your deeds.

bytheway Just speak to the solicitor you are using for the sale of your property and he will have all the relevant legal information about your house at his finger tips, so nothing to worry about.

I believe there is no need for title deeds nowadays in England as all info is with Land Registry. Im pleased though that we have all papers from 1935.

You can access the Land Registry through gov.uk. Most modern properties have an entry there rather than paper 'deeds'. Some people have kept their paper deeds on old properties because of the historical interest.
If I remember rightly, registration became compulsory in about 1968. So you still come across properties that have never been registered, which is why 'deeds' may be asked for.

Lenders haven’t kept title deeds for years. If you bought your property in 2001 the title will be registered at the Land Registry and doubtless your solicitor has already downloaded the title documents from the LR. Original title deeds sometimes survive but what’s relevant is not the old deeds but the registered title. Old deeds are only of historic interest.

You’re paying your solicitor to help you fill these forms in!

I have spent the best part of a year searching for my title deeds.
I knew that they existed as I had seen them years ago when it had been important to find how much land we were responsible for and what rights we have . For example there is an ancient water well which we were allowed to use but had to pay the church of Scotland the sum of half a guinea each half year.

When DH died, I began to collect together important documents incase I need to sell the house.

Eventually I gave up searching the house and my lawyer applied to the Sassines (the Scottish equivalent of the English Land Registry)
I was sent photocopies at £5 per page.

Our title deeds were returned to us when we paid off our mortgage. We are in Scotland.

We have a copy of our deeds but our solicitor holds the original deeds, along with our wills.

We have our title deeds, but they are merely of archive interest as the house has been registered with the Land Registry, probably since shortly afte the system was introduced in 1925, Prior to that it was held on a feudal tenancy/ownership agreement known as 'Copyhold'

My title deeds were returned to me from building society when mortgage was paid off. All neatly bound in a folder with all original plans for house.

Not always easy to get title deeds
Bought a house in Cheshire 1982 saw all the deeds they were lent to us by building society as there was boundary disputes once settled the deed returned to building society
When mortgage paid up we requested their return. Only to be told they had been destroyed as they were no longer needed for property transactions such a shame as they were fascinating

Same with deeds held by the LR - it’s a shame but the cost of storage is prohibitive.

It's a bit different in Scotland ofcourse it is! .
The Register of Sassines goes back to Medieval times but some of the deeds are so ancient and obscure, it's hard to trace ownership. They are in the process of being digitised but there's a long way to go.
A book Who owns Scotland by Andy Whiteman and a TV documentary explains it all.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00111y7
My house is at least 200 years old and I would love to know more about its early history.

In a locked cupboard with a few other documents.

Fireproof I hope.

Germanshepherdsmum

Lenders haven’t kept title deeds for years. If you bought your property in 2001 the title will be registered at the Land Registry and doubtless your solicitor has already downloaded the title documents from the LR. Original title deeds sometimes survive but what’s relevant is not the old deeds but the registered title. Old deeds are only of historic interest.

You’re paying your solicitor to help you fill these forms in!

Interesting. We bought in 1994 but still had the deeds returned to us when our mortgage was paid off. Why would the mortgage company have needed them if they were superseded by registration at the Land Registry?

Compulsory registration came in in 1987. The people we purchased from had bought the property in 1984 so ours was probably first registration at the LR. Would that explain the mortgager having the deeds?

It's a crying shame that old deeds were made obsolete . They are so interesting. Mind you, our house was built pre 1700 but abstract of title only goes back to the late 19th C. I could only trace it back further through manorial court records..

My house is 1870s and the deeds are really interesting....but entirely worthless .....the house is registered online with land registry

The LR used to issue a paper title certificate back then and they only needed to see the documents relevant to prove title. They didn’t, iirc, keep everything but returned deeds to solicitors after first registration - I may be wrong there as it’s a long time ago! There would also be older deeds no longer of relevance, and after the title was registered the pre-registration deeds were superfluous as anything relevant such as covenants was recorded on the registered title. Solicitors tended to send all the deeds to lenders, superfluous or not. Eventually lenders didn’t want documents sent to them when the title was registered as they took up so much space, just the mortgage deed and evidence of its registration. Solicitors would retain everything or pass irrelevant deeds to clients. It’s sad that the old deeds to many old houses have been lost or destroyed but a lot survive in county record offices, often deposited by solicitors having a clear out long after the client disappeared off the radar. Old deeds may be irrelevant to the title but are of huge historical interest. Well done for tracing your property through manorial records - no easy task.

When I first tried to locate the deeds, I tried the solicitor we had back 40 yrs ago, He was no longer but swallowed up by another partnership and yet another.
Covid was blamed for the inability to search their archives.
The Bank which had supplied our mortgage had been taken over and the worst thing was noone seemed to know anything.
I eventually got my new solicitor, who was helping me with my will etc, to help in the search and with a bit of persuasion, they found at least some of the history of the ownership.
I don't think they understood how important it is to me to know which bits of land are mine. In this town there are lots of pieces of land with unknown ownership.

We have the original deeds for our house from when the land was first sold sometime in the 19th century when it was an orchard, and our house wasn’t built until 1933. It’s fascinating reading through all the previous owners.

It must be Susie42
What I found was the last sale before 1980, when we bought it, was in 1897! But nothing before then and from photographic and other written evidence, the house was built in 1811.
There's a romantic painting showing the house with a woman in a crinoline walking in the romanticised gardens