House deeds.

[Wingedharpy]

We are in the process of sorting out our affairs to make life a bit less complicated for relatives in the event of our demise.
We have no mortgage but our house deeds are with our former mortgage provider.
The house is not registered with the land registry as we have been here donkeys years.
To make things easier for our executors/relatives should we :
register the house now, ourselves,
or leave things as they are
or retrieve the deeds from the mortgage provider and ask our solicitor to keep them with our wills? (would there be a charge for this?).
Our solicitors are our will executors.

I'm mindful we could possibly need to sell our house one day rather than just when dead IYKWIM.
DH is worried about security of deeds if they are stored at home.
Many thanks.

Register it

I'd register the house now, without a doubt. A conveyancer acting for any potential purchaser may try and insist on it before exchanging anyway which could delay matters for yourselves or your executors. Once registered your title is guaranteed and the deeds won't be important, other than as historic interest. Much safer.

I would definitely get the deeds back from your former mortgage lender (there are always a surprisingly high number of first registrations where statutory declarations iro documentary title have to be made due to lost documents by previous mortgage lenders).

It is cheaper to voluntarily complete first registration, so if you can afford the cost now (which will be different depending on value... the more expensive your house is, the higher the cost but the bigger the voluntary registration discount) then I would do it, as it's just one less thing for anyone to worry about later down the line. If not, then there is no real harm in keeping the land unregistered, but previous poster was right in that some buyers and mortgage lenders would insist on it being registered prior to completion of a sale.

Are you sure the property is unregistered? This is odd if it was conveyed after 1925.

Actually I've just checked and the last areas to be brought into reqiring a conveyance to be registered was only in 1990! So not unusual at all. And yes, if you register the property yourselves it will make life easier whatever the future holds.

@Jon65:
I'm no expert (!), I wouldn't be here asking the question if I was but, my understanding is that compulsory registration of property to the land registry was introduced gradually across the country and didn't cover everywhere until approx 1990.
I'm not sure when it became compulsory in my town but certainly in the east of my county, it wasn't until 1988 so maybe not too odd - I hope!
The house doesn't show on a land registry search so, presumably, not registered.

Please don't tell me you're a property conveyancer!😀

Cross post.

Register it.

I did a voluntary first registration for a client. It turned out the Land Registry had given the middle of his garden to his neighbours. We had it corrected but it would have been a lot harder for his executors to sort out.

Don't hold your title deeds at home unless you have a fireproof safe to keep them in. Either leave them in the bank or with your solicitor as they will have proper safe rooms to hold these in.

Thanks to all for your input - much appreciated.
I have contacted former mortgage provider today and will be making arrangements with them tomorrow to retrieve deeds and then set about getting property registered.
Is it best to use a conveyancing solicitor for this ie. registering the property or is there a simple DIY method for folks in our situation?

Unregistered land can be fiddly. Even some conveyancers can't do it now (London mainly). Get a conveyancer to do it. If your area is one with later compulsory registration you shouldn't have trouble finding someone.