Title deeds and mortgage repayment.

[Talland 2016]

A few years back before we had paid off the mortgage a huge envelope arrived which were our original house deeds and associated paperwork relating to the house
Building society letter said they were issuing them to householders as too expensive for them to store
I have had to refer to them when there was a query over boundaries and who had to pay for a new fence

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Originally Posted by Talland 2016

A few years back before we had paid off the mortgage a huge envelope arrived which were our original house deeds and associated paperwork relating to the house
Building society letter said they were issuing them to householders as too expensive for them to store
I have had to refer to them when there was a query over boundaries and who had to pay for a new fence

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Maybe 25+ years ago we had to contact the Building Society when the boundary wall in the back garden blew down.

They confirmed it was jointly owned and therefore we approached the neighbour and split the cost 50/50.

However the one at the bottom of our garden is wholly owned by us. Due to the age of our house and nothing was behind us when ours was built hence sole ownership.

[Floridasun]

We paid ours off recently too. We had an admin fee of £45 no deeds to be held as we have been here 13 yrs and they are all electronically stored by land registry. Our mortgage was in 2 parts. The first one had no penalties but the 2nd part was on a fixed rate so had a penalty. We waited a few months till that expired as the penalty was more than the interest we were paying. If you have a fixed deal with an early repayment penalty you need to find out if it is higher than any interest you will pay before the fixed period is up. If it is much higher then put the money to one side and pay it off as soon as the penalty period expires. If you worry about dipping into it then put it in an instant access ISA to stop you doing so quite so easily.

[Celica190]

I had one monthly payment plus a further balancing figure of around £119 to pay to pay off our mortgage so marched into the Building Society after Christmas with a view to paying what was left. I was advised not to as there would be £170 in fees, which I wouldn’t have to pay if I wait.

[400ixl]

Originally Posted by Claudette

I think they are all held electronically, that is certainly what the government website indicates anyway. It doesn’t mean physical copies ceased to exist.

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This is not the case for all. If the house changed ownership within the last 20 or so years then there is a good chance that the essential documents were scanned and are now held electronically. Before that they most likely are not electronic and even some in the last 20 years have not been done.

To say they are all could leave someone with real issues if something should happen and they have not been digitised, so never assume.

Use the following link to search for your address gov.uk/search-property-i...-land-registry

It will return a list of any documents which have been digitised.

[JAF]

Originally Posted by Claudette

This makes no sense whatsoever and I would challenge them. Physical deeds are history.

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When we closed our mortgage they tried to charge us to release the deeds or we could leave them with them and pay a small annual fee to hold them but we queried this as everything is held electronically so really they are not necessary anymore and they capitulated waived the fee and just sent all of them to us.

[Mexy02]

Originally Posted by Claudette

I think they are all held electronically, that is certainly what the government website indicates anyway. It doesn’t mean physical copies ceased to exist.

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It depends on the age of the property . We are registered with the land registery as to ownership, mortgage liabilities etc but we were told the deeds are ours and to look after them safely .
I believe we had a letter after we received them saying the documents have been scanned but not all and are available at a cost of £7 per page , but there is a fair chunk so the cost would be substantial. Some of the documents are just land deeds ( including wills ) before any houses were out on the site we are on now. Really interesting read.

[Floridag1rl]

Interesting thread.
Just searched my MIL address and because the house was bought out right over 29 years ago there is no digital record on the land registry. I am assuming it will depend on whether the property has been mortgaged then there is a higher chance of the digital record.

[400ixl]

Correct, it is only the essential documents that get scanned, usually at change of ownership if they are been at all. Even if some are scanned many of the documents may not be. The link I gave allows you to see what if any docs have been scanned

Can we please just point people to the link for the facts and not make potentially wrong assumptions based on individual experience.

We have some documents scanned and others not. If I took the advice given by some on here I could be putting other documents at risk.

[daisymae]

Thanks for all the replies. We are still debating what to do but will probably pay the whole mortgage off no penalties as our fixed rate runs out at end of March. Dh is extremely risk averse so we will be speaking to our solicitor about keeping the physical copies. We have been in the house which is a bungalow for 16 years and original owners and not looking to sell unless we downsize as we get older or our fabulous neighbours all leave lol. Thanks for all the info is much appreciated.