House Deeds if bought outright

[WinterBlues26]

If you've bought your house outright, either by cash or from the sale of another house, did you get a copy of your deeds and when.

I bought this house last July and I haven't received anything and I'm starting to get a bit twitchy now.

Yes you’ll get a copy , we completed in June on a cash purchase and still haven’t received them.
I chased my solicitor who informed me Land Registry have a huge backlog but if you need them urgently (for a remortgage for example ) then can request they are expedited

It’s all electronic copies now
but if they have the originals sometimes you can get them too

The old originals with wax seals and beautiful handwriting are amazing so worth asking

Thanks both. Do I contact the Land Registry or my solicitors about this? The house i bought isn't suitable and I need to put it back on the market very soon.

You need to contact your solicitor and ask them to confirm whether the transfer of the property to you has been registered at the Land Registry yet. The Land Registry may not have completed it yet because they have a huge back log but the solicitor should have submitted the application to register shortly after completion. There will be no physical deeds, you’ll just get a copy of the Official Copy Entries that the Land Registry hold which will show you as the registered proprietor of the property.

There may be historical physical deeds
We’ve had ours from previous purchases but we always got them from the previous owners by asking the conveyancers

They will go back to when the house was built ( including when it was just land ) and will have been updated to the point that everything became digitalised
We asked our conveyancers to ask for them
Technically they don’t have to give them to you as they are no longer a legal document

You don’t need the physical pre-registration deeds unless you want them for your own interest. All of the relevant covenants/rights etc contained in the original deeds are detailed on the OCE’s and HMLR will generally have copies of the pre-reg deeds which contain covenants/rights etc from when they were submitted on first registration of the property.

Agree
Im just noting as they are such interesting documents
We have ours framed 😊

We also bought outright/cash purchase and it took eleven months (Sept 2024 - Aug 2025) for our deeds to come through. I was on the verge of contacting our conveyancing solicitor about it when the electronic copy was received.

As an aside, for some unknown reason the sale has only ever appeared on the Land Registry database and Zoopla...not Rightmove.

I’ve noticed that rightmove glitch
I wonder if the buyers request for it not to be shown

Do any mumsnetters here know ???

Eleven months!!

I'm assuming that once the house is registered to you then the deeds get sent out almost immediately. It's worrying as it could be registered to some random because they have so much paperwork in front of them. Mistakes do happen 😬

Thanks all, I'll email the solicitor to see if they can push it through for a Spring sale. This house has produced many surprises in a few short months and none have been pleasant. I'm done.

We got the original deeds when we bought our house, with a mortag. And my previous house sale has never been on Rightmove. I think it's dependent on the buyer's solicitor doing something.

As an aside, I remember a You and Yours programme about the scandal of a stranger being able to access your house via the Land Registry and sell your house without you knowing. I'm sure there was some recommendation to register yourself on the LR to protect this happening. Is this just done by paying the £7 fee, does anyone know?

Our house is mortgaged and the previous owner just left the original deeds in the property for us. They’ve not been updated since the original owner as the sales have all been recorded electronically with the land registry.

No, there’s no fee to add the protection. You create an account and register for notifications.

Yes
You can register to be notified if anyone accesses your LReg docs
online
We’ve done it

Check out HM land registry property alert service
It does work when we were selling ee were notified of activity when the buyers solicitor accessed it