Building society have lost the house title deeds and they are leaving me to hunt them down !

[catpark]

Basically paid my mortgage of a few weeks back. Building society asked if I wanted them to keep the title deeds or return them to me. I said return to me. Have heard nothing so phoned them. Got told that they don't know were the deeds are, they might have sent them to the solicitor I used when i bought the house or they might be in land registry. So I have to hunt them down myself.
The solicitor we used has told me the building society i used stopped keeping deeds a few years ago and had given them to lawyers/solicitors etc. (So why did they offer to keep them for me If they no longer do this ?) But we should have been informed as we would have had to sign a legal document as the deeds were being transferred out of the building society to somewere else. We never got told anything about the deeds being put somewere else. Surely this is a breach of data protection or something ?
The solicitor is going to check their files for them, but i'm raging about the building society.

What can I do about this ?
Also posted this in legal.

Before you go accusing the BS I think you need to be absolutely sure that you did not sign an authority for them to release the deeds to the solicitor that dealt with the conveyance.

If I were you I would request a copy of this letter that you have signed. They should have held that on file. to be honest I was under the impression that the mortgage company held on to the Deeds until the mortgage was discharged.

In relation to Data Protection I don't think you really have a leg to stand on because you can buy details of anyone's deed's and charges (lodged with Land Registry) on the Land Registry website for about £4. Plus not many are actual hard copies any more, mainly electronic.

I thought the building society kept them as well and we did not sign anything. Plus 2 weeks ago they had them and now they don't have a record of were they are which to me is very strange. The mortgage was completly payed off and they actually owe me money back as apparantly they don't recognise the last mortgage payment so I had to pay it again. But I should get it back within 7 working days, which has passed and still no sign of that either !

Solicitor just phoned me. They don't have the deeds, he thinks the building society either have them somewere or they have lost them. He's going to go through the legal channel to request them. If they don't appear then he can get them reissued from the central register. So hopefully they do turn up.

Want to have everything settled so we can move next year to a bigger house, we'll need a small mortgage for a few years ago but won't be going with this particular company again !

Apparently deeds are held electronically at the land registry nowadays. I bought my property 3 years ago mortgage free & was never even offered the hard copies. I shouldn't worry about it.

Annoying, but not a huge deal nowadays - it's all about the Land Registry record not the bit of paper.