end of mortgage - property deeds

[SirTiffikate]

About five years ago I finished paying off my mortgage (not a stealth boast, I'm old). I assumed I'd receive the deeds from the building society but I never did and I never got round to following it up. I've been worried on-and-off ever since that I should have done it and I've made a terrible mistake, and I've been prevaricating about doing something about it because I don't know who to contact and what to do, and I'm very scared that I'll find out it's become impossible and I'll never be able to prove ownership. I'm in Scotland if that makes a difference. Can I do something about it, or is there a time limit?

Presumably you have the mortgage account details still, the name of the lender etc? Wouldn’t you just call their customer service dept and see what they suggest, then take that info to your solicitor?
Financial papers have to be kept for a considerable period of years.
I think it will all resolve.

Contact your (previous) lender. Even if they never had them they should be able to point you in the right direction. A lot of deeds are being held electronically now so there might not be any paper deeds for you to have.

You reminded me! I own my property and the deeds are electronic apparently. I don't know how to locate them, I'm assuming the solicitor that did the conveyancing has them.

When I bought my place I lodged the deeds with the solicitor somehow. Having said that, I have no idea how I’d go about getting them.

Land registry is all electronic, in England anyway. I'm sure you can just go online and pay a few pounds for a copy of the title of register which should show your name on it.

No, AFAIK there is still an actual paper deed that has to be somewhere.

We paid off our mortgage about 3 years ago and Nationwide sent us the deeds fairly quickly.

Deeds aren't really a thing any more. Your title (ownership) will be registered at the Land Registry and you can apply for a copy if you wish. You should check the title to make sure your lender removed their charge when the mortgage was repaid.

There are also steps you can take to protect your property from being used in a fraud. It is not uncommon for fraudsters to obtain a mortgage over someone else's property which is easier to do when a property is unmortgaged. There is advice available here: www.gov.uk/protect-land-property-from-fraud

In Scotland, you need to get a solicitor to discharge a mortgage deed. Your solicitor will deal with mortgage provider to finish all the legal paper. Charges a fee though. Around £250.

Interesting. In England the mortgage lender will usually get the conveyancer to send the old documents to the purchaser and only the electronic records survive once title has been established.

Thanks for the replies. My lender was original Dunfermline Building Society, which was taken over by Nationwide. As it's Scotland, I think I'll need to do as @Randouser says, and contact a solicitor. I don't 'have' a solicitor, so presumably I can just contact one - e.g. the firm I dealt with when I originally bought my property.

I'm in England and the only proof of ownership we have us with the Land Registry.

The actual paper deeds were destroyed in a bombing raid in WW2, as were many others so its not terribly unusual for there to be no paper deeds.

At some point (I really couldn't tell you when maybe around 2010 but it was long before the mortgage was paid off) our mortgage lender send us our deeds in the post with a covering letter saying it was all electronic now and we could destroy them if we wanted to. I still have them for historical interest, but I don't think they have any legal standing.

Older properties still have paper deeds most definitely, unless the deeds have been destroyed or condensed electronically at some point. My last house was built in 1923 and we had a large pack of deeds and paperwork going back to when it was built. It was really interesting. It was sent to the Northern Rock Building Society when we took out the mortgage with them. When we paid it off the deeds were posted to us.
My current house was built in 1984 and I do have paper deeds with some other paperwork in them but not very much. I paid cash for this house and my solicitor forwarded the deeds to me.

@SirTiffikate before contacting a solicitor check the Land Register in Scotland you can search at scotlis.ros.gov.uk and see if the mortgage (standard security) is still showing. It will cost you £3. In Scotland there is a system where lenders can automatically register a Discharge to remove it. Message me if you want any further information.

I never got the paper deeds when I paid off the mortgage on my 1930s house (England) back in the 1990s; I wanted them, for my archive, but the original mortgage company had been swallowed up by a bigger one around the time everything was going electronic, I was never offered the paper ones and by the time I asked for them they had disappeared 😕

Thanks @guessmyusername - I went on the Scottish land register site, and it gave me an option to order the title register for £15.97 so I've done that. It seemed to be the cheapest option (you could order a plan as well, either on its own or with the title register). It says I should receive it tomorrow, so hopefully I will. If I'm still in doubt I'll message you, thank you for offering.

Not sure why you’d spent money as the side gave clear instructions and your solicitor can request title deed for you.

www.ros.gov.uk/services/discharge-a-mortgage-deed

You need to make sure the Building Society have done the END (electronic notification discharge) to the Land Registry, then they can update the register.

This.

We paid ours off about 8 years ago and never got any physical documents.

I've got my deeds. My mortgage still has years to run!!

I asked about the solicitor storing them. But they don't do that anymore.