House Deeds

[Oleanda]

I know they are not called deeds these days, but when you have finished paying off a mortgage, if you leave a nominal sum unpaid the morgage company will store your "deeds" free of charge. If you then sell the house you have to pay off the nominal sum and retrieve the deeds to pass on to your buyer. You then buy another house for cash. My question is, where is the best place to store the "deeds" for the new house?

[Oneeyedvic]

They have become rather irelevant now - your 'original' deeds are now classed as copies - the ones held on file at landregistry (on computer) are classed as the originals.

[Miss Zippy]

Ask a local solicitor to store them for you - they should only charge around �12 or �15 a year or so (plus VAT). Oneeyedvic is right that many mortgage lenders now no longer need to retain the hard copy deeds as legal evidence of property ownership in England and Wales is shown on the Land Registry.  However, if Deeds are returned to homeowners (whether or not the mortgage is paid off) it is still important to keep these safely as not all the information kept with the deeds will be logged with the Land Registry.  For instance, documents/ informattion relating to  contruction or building warranties, evidence of building regulation compliance/ planning approval or agreements to maintain common land etc. will not be held at the Land Registry and if you lose this information it will cause problems when selling the property.

[WendyS]

Our solicitor stores our house deeds free of charge, probably as they're also Executor of our Wills.