Property Deeds

[MyrtleBee]

I've taken over my parents house and the property deeds are safely stored with a building society.

They've told me that if the deeds come out of store they will be unable to return them there and will have to send them to me.

Is it best to leave them where they are, and if so, how can I get a copy?

Many thanks for reading.

I think you need to provide a bit more information.

Why have you taken over your parents house and what do you mean by that?

Why do you need a copy of the deeds?

Have they lived there for many years and never had it registered with the Land Registry?

For example, my parents deeds were at the Halifax and had been for the 50 years they lived there. When dad died the solicitor recommended getting it registered with the Land Registry to make things easier in years to come, they were only one of two houses on the street that hadn't been done due to the length of time they lived there.

It took a while due to covid but once done, the main documents were stored and updated electronically with the Land Registry and the actual paper deed released to mum for her records.

I would recommend this should be the route you take if the situation is similar.

The title deeds to the house we bought (in 2014) had been lost, it caused previous buyers to pull out of the purchase but at the point of our purchase, all deeds were being moved to being stored electronically by Land Registry anyway. So we weren't bothered and felt the chance of some random having the paper documents and trying to claim title was remote.

I don't see why you shouldn't have them released to you by Halifax, assuming any mortgage held has been paid off. The title will be registered online anyway, so you might as well have them? (If we had ours it would be filed away with the important documents like birth certs and passports, although they're [the deeds] not as vital as they once were.)

They've told me that if the deeds come out of store they will be unable to return them there and will have to send them to me.

As far as building societies and insurance companies are concerned, the safekeeping of other people's deeds and documents is a right pain. I dealt with this sort of stuff during most of my career (insurance and IFA) and we were only too happy to get rid of them at the first opportunity.

Non-one has deeds anymore!

You are mistaken. Although not common, there certainly are houses that are still unregistered and so the owners will either have the deeds themselves or held by a bank etc.

Here is part of the Land Registry map near Romsey and you will see that there are a number of houses that are still unregistered.