What happens with the house deeds when you pay off your mortgage?

[cava2nite]

We're in a fortunate position to have paid off our Nationwide mortgage today, with the help of an inheritance from my mum who sadly died recently. Does this mean that the house deeds (or whatever the ownership papers are called) will be sent to us? I'm sure I remember reading several years ago that it's best to leave a few pounds owing to the lender, to make sure the deeds continue to be stored safely. However, perhaps things have changed because I saw nothing about it on Nationwide's website during the repayment process.

We got ours returned, they were so interesting, our property was built on the walled kitchen garden of a very large house which had burned down, two hundred or so years before. Copies of land titles from the landed gentry, copies of wills, it was fascinating reading.

We sold it a few years ago, I wish I'd taken copies,

"Lots of paper deeds are still around. My paper ones are in the house from when we bought 11 years ago. Electronically we’re still done online. My house was a late 70s build."

You bought after 1990 so the paper deeds might be of historical interest but the legal registration is online.

I just checked the current status on the Land Registry site and it says that 14% of land remains unregistered. I can't believe that so many of the 14% are on this thread and the paper deeds are still needed to show legal title. 🤷‍♀️

The lenders name is taken off the Land Registry.
When you have a mortgage the Land Reg shows owned by Joe Bloggs and interest by Nationwide. That will be changed to wined solely by you.
That constitutes deeds these days, unless you have an old house that has handwritten ones. I only had those once about 30 years ago.

Thank you @TheFutureMrsWolowitz and @Winnading

When I came to sell my father’s mortgage-less house the deeds were missing and it caused all sorts of problems. He had bought it before registration was compulsory in his area.

The solicitors said they had been holding them but my father had taken them away - but there was also a charge on the property which should have been paid off when he bought it, and they hadn’t done that, so I didn’t quite trust them.

Someone (the building society, I assume, but I can’t remember) sent us the paper deeds to our current house unasked when the mortgage was paid off. It was useful when the neighbours wanted us to replace the fence between us at the front of the houses with a wall. The plans show no fence at the front, just a tree. We said they could replace it if they wanted but we weren’t paying. We have paid to replace the fence at the back when it was blown down, because we are liable for that.

I live on a nice street full of pensioners. Pretty much all of the houses wont be on the registry. Because they've all lived here from buying new in the 1930s and 40s and never changed hands.

The surrounding streets are similar, with similar age groups. I expect as they die off they will all be added to the land registry.

So these people need the paper deeds to prove they own the houses.

My mortgage provider has them in their deedstore facility. They might as well stay there as anywhere else.

I live on a nice street full of pensioners. Pretty much all of the houses wont be on the registry. Because they've all lived here from buying new in the 1930s and 40s and never changed hands.

Your neighbours are all over 100 years old ??

Many are yes, but often the children live in them now.

Weve had 8 100 birthdays in the last three years.