Lost title deeds?

[dilemma456]

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this happened to us - we were first time buyers and there was no upward chain, everything was going swimmingly until it turned out that some granny had lost her deeds.

the thing that made it seem like a genuine mistake and not a blag was that she also owned two other houses in the street and some in northampton and had lost those deeds too (and had sold no 3 a few years earlier and had had the deeds).

basically the vendor's solicitor had to 'recreate' the deeds, and this took ages. i tried ringing her on a regular basis to chivvy her along, until she told me that i wasn't allowed to do that . my own solicitor had nothing to say on the subject.

it took about 6 months for the deeds to be recreated and sent to the land registry, at which point they gave the property a possessory title, rather than an absolute title. at this point my solicitor said 'i think the land registry have been a bit pedantic about this' and 'i wouldn't touch this house with a bargepole'. but my mum rang the land registry and spoke to the woman who'd dealt with our house (i was too upset), and basically that was always going to happen - that's the law, she couldn't issue an absolute title because someone could turn up with the original deeds and claim it was their house. i was pretty pissed off that my solicitor hadn't given her 'bargepole' advice a bit sooner (before house prices had risen by over £20000 for example).

because i had already spent money and, more importantly, time on buying that house i went ahead with the purchase. this was nearly 8 years ago and no one has turned up yet claiming it's their house, not ours (touch wood), but apparently the vendors took out 'indemnity insurance' against this happening. having said that i have never seen the policy, and also have no idea whether it covers us for the price we originally paid, or what the house is now worth. oh god, i'm worried now...

i also have an idea, but i'm not sure where i got if from, that after 12 years if the original deeds have not turned up then we have kind of 'squatters' rights' and can get an absolute title that way.

the house next door that was owned by the same granny has sold twice since we bought ours and the one next door to that has a sitting tenant and has sold 3 times since we bought ours, so there are obviously plenty of people around who a possessory title wouldn't worry, but it will take a lot more time for your purchase.

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It depends whether they are registered at HM Land Registry. If so, the land registry have electronic copies of all the important documents so that needn't cause too much concern.

If they are saying the deeds are unregistered then you will probably go along the same road as JaneK. Possessory title is not as good as Absolute title but indemnity insurance is a possibility. This is normally for the value of the property. If you then sold in a few years time you would probably need to top the policy up to meet the future sale price (assuming it went up in value)

If they had them recently are they with the company that prepared the HIP? Worth a try.

good point mummygogo, i think all houses sold since 2000 have been registered electronically with the land registry (so ours are now, we could happily lose our recreated deeds).

if i were you, i would try insisting that the vendor's solicitor starts to recreate the deeds, and to get a move on. then if the deeds turn up you can proceed with the purchase, and if they don't then you are getting to new deeds as quickly as possible.

this will cost the vendor money, but you just time, although i do appreciate that time is of the essence when you want to move house.

We bought a house with a 'possessory title' - nothing dodgy about it as previous owners family had built house and never worried about the deeds (it was Victorian!). Our solicitor was worried about it but we felt it was ok and had spent money by then so didn't want to pull out so we went through with sale. Was an absolute nightmare to sell on though - we had 3 lots of buyers pull out because of it. There is something you can do about registering and then getting an 'absolute title' after a certain amount of time - your solicitor will know what to do I'm sure....

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Hmmm - if title is registered at land registry and most land in Uk now is then this should not have been an issue at all. In fact there technically is no such thing as title deeds at all any more. Land or Charge certificates are no longer issued and your title is evidenced by a document called a title information document which can be viewed online and in resepct of which there are no originals as such. So your hosue must be unregistered in whch case it is a bit of a palava but not that difficult.

Good luck!

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Well possibly but the last unregistered land I dealt with was in REading and I dealt with it in 1993 and it had been in same hands since 1935! Land REgistration began in 1925 and is pretty much common place now. Where is this house in teh country?

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