best place to store house deeds

[soaccidentprone]

the solicitor we used to purchase our house 11 years ago has died and his practice is now closed. the house deeds were kept by his practice, and we have received a letter from another solicitors stating they have received our deeds and what would we like to do with them? they are not based I'm the same city as us.

do I arrange for another practice to keep them and would I be better using a bank.

we do not have a solicitor and we bank online.

what would be the cheapest option.

we own our house and have never had a mortgage.

oh wise mumsnetters, please help with your words of wisdom

[Collaborate]

You don't need deeds these days. Everything happens electronically, and your records are kept at the land registry.

[soaccidentprone]

I thought your deeds were electronic only if you had moved in the last 10 years?

[MOSagain]

As collaborate says, you don't need them anymore, all registered at Land Registry. I wouldn't pay to keep them anywhere, haven't you got somewhere safe at home you can keep them?

[digerd]

I have 2 copies in my bureau cupboard. My solicitor also moved away and I collected his copy.

[mumblechum1]

As long as it's registered (I think compulsory registration came in in 1986), you don't need any paper.

[iheartdusty]

we have a small fireproof safe at home to keep important documents, but as others have said, paper house deeds don't matter for anything any more as long as your property is registered.

[LandRegistryRep]

As others have mentioned in most cases the record of legal ownership will be held electronically, making the 'old deeds' obsolete as far as being proof of ownership.
We have an online FAQ www.landregistry.gov.uk/public/faqs/where-are-my-deeds-kept around where deeds might be kept which explains this further.

All registered titles (roughly 24 million of them) in England & Wales are now held electronically.

People have a variety of views as to whether the old deeds for a registered property should be kept at home or elsewhere but that decision need only be based on personal reasons rather than the need to prove ownership.

Finally, if you want to check the trigger date for compulsory registration in your area then refer to our online Practice Guide 51 www.landregistry.gov.uk/professional/guides/practice-guide-51 - if you bought your property after the date shown then it will be registered

[Xenia]

LandR is right but there are unregistered titles around. When my mother died we found my parents who bought their house over 40 years before had unregistered title to the land. We got it registered before my father died.

Also last week where I live someone was trying to find a document which the land Register which is usually very efficient did not have on the register so I it can be very helpful to keep your own originals and lots of copies in lots of places as a back up. If I were you I would ask the new lawyer to make you a photocopy and send that to you and then let them store it and send an email to all your family members and children and keep a copy saying where they are stored and sensible to do similar for wills and life policies and things like that.

Lawyers apparently like to store documents even though they have storage costs so that you then have a connection to that firm and might use them in future.

[cmatthews]

If anyone is still reading this thread, do not just throw away your old Title Deeds and documents otherwise you are going to be paying a lot of money to replace original planning permission documents, building regulation consents, guarantees, Fensa certificates etc. A Solicitor will usually store them for you free of charge if you want them to. They do this in the hope you might give them the chance to quote for any purchase, Will etc in the future.