Should we Collect our House Deeds

C

ConorP

Registered User
Messages
31
Hi People,

I hope someone might be able to advise us please.

We paid off our Mortgage with PTSB today and received a letter with a small section on how to get the deeds for the house.. We pay €35.00 to a solicitor and the deeds are sent to them and then something like another € 35.00 to have a seal etc.. and voila we have the deeds in our hands..

But my questions is .. Should I bother to collect the deeds at all right now 'cos : the person at PTSB said there was no need to request them ( even though the mortgage is paid off ) until I really need them .. I asked ' so , you'll mind them free of charge ' and the lady replied 'yes'..

So , is it safe to leave the deeds of my house with the lending institution until I 'really' need them ????

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

CP
 
I have mine at home but I worry in case something might happen to them, I think its probably best to leave them with your solicitor although he/she may charge you a price for the priviledge.
 
I'd recommend leaving them with the lender if they're happy to retain them. When they are required your solicitor can then take them up.

An alternative is have your solicitor take them up now, organise the vacate and see if either the solicitor will retain them or else deposit them with a bank for safe keeping.
 
The lender will have proper storage facilities for them, safe from fire etc. so leave them there if they'll hold them for free!
 
Two questions -

1. What are the consequences if the deeds are destroyed or lost? Are they not just copies of other documents?

2. In light of recent events, what "shenanigans" could a solicitor get up to with the deeds of a fully paid off house?

tia
 
If your former lender can retain them for safe keeping then it seems sensible to leave them there. Certainly more sensible than keeping them at home. Contact the branch and see if you can/need to go in to seal them up for security purposes. I got our deeds from EBS when the mortgage was cleared and they would not retain them (no space) so I left them in for safe keeping with my bank (also PTSB). I just had to put them in a sealed envelope and sign the seal so that any interference with the package would be obvious. They give you a safe keeping receipt. You should store this somewhere safe and maybe also mention its location in your will or some other record of assets just in case!
 
I would disagree with leaving them with the lender. As the mortgage is paid off, the lender has no interest in the property. Therefore they have no reason to be in possession of the deeds and no need for them. I would have a problem leaving such an important set of paperwork with a large faceless organisation that has no interest in storing them and has nothing to gain from retrieving them quickly from their files when you do need them. I would guess that it would be highly likely that if you sought them from the bank in a few years and needed them quickly, you would risk getting the ".....we're looking for them..... will take a while to locate....etc." excuse or even the ".....we dont know where they are...." excuse. Searching for and retrieving your deeds is not going to be a priority for their staff if they are busy. Locating them may also be difficult particularly if over the years, the bank reorganises its storage, branches close, merge with other bank etc.

I've worked in an area that was involved in property transactions (commerical premises rather than residential) and we had a lot of problems with retrieving title deeds for transfers from organisations who were holding them and no longer owned them, particularly older properties where nobody has a clue where deeds are stored. There was many a time when I got the answer "there somewhere in storage.....we havent located them yet" & you could sense that the staff in the particular office were thinking to themselves...."why should I spend a couple of days searching in a storage area for someones deeds when I have plenty of work to be doing and customers to deal with". If the bank does lose your deeds, I wish you luck with trying to extract a Declaration from them for the Land Registry.

I would recommend that you get them back asap. Put them in storage in a safe place e.g. with your solicitor, in a safe in your house or in one of those rented boxes in a bank.
 
csirl said:
I would disagree with leaving them with the lender. As the mortgage is paid off, the lender has no interest in the property. Therefore they have no reason to be in possession of the deeds and no need for them.
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You should arrange for the (former) lender's interest in the property to be removed from the deeds. They will sort this out for a small fee or you can collect the deeds and bring them to the relevant Land Registry/Registry of Deeds office to get it done yourself for a smaller fee.

I am talking about leaving the deeds with the former lender for safe keeping. This has nothing to do per se with the fact that they were previously the lender.
I would have a problem leaving such an important set of paperwork with a large faceless organisation that has not interest in storing them and has nothing to gain from retrieving them quickly from their files when you do need them.
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Safe keeping is a standard service that many banks offer customers - for a fee or sometimes for free (e.g. PTSB don't charge me). You may as well say that you don't trust them with your money and stick it under the mattress instead! Just as facile an argument in my opinion.
I must test your theory by dropping into my bank branch and asking them if I can see my deeds and see how it goes.
I would recommend that you get them back asap. Put them in storage in a safe place e.g. with your solicitor
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Many solicitors (and lenders and banks) no longer offer this service. Some do but charge a fee.
in a safe in your house
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Only if it's a high quality fire proof safe!
or in one of those rented boxes in a bank.
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That's basically what we're talking about here. But it's not like the movies with the walk in safes and individual deposit boxes that you access personally!
 
Thanks Clubman.. I think your reply sounds like the one to folllow....

I'll contact the lender & have their interest removed from the deed.. When I do this "have their interest removed from the deed".. will they automactically contact the land registry etc.. about the deeds..

And if all this is done .. I would still hope that the PTSB would still retain them for safe keeping.. I'll let you know how I get on.

Regards and many thanks to all of ye who have helped.

CP
 
ConorP said:
I'll contact the lender & have their interest removed from the deed.. When I do this "have their interest removed from the deed".. will they automactically contact the land registry etc.. about the deeds..
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They should have sent you a letter outlining what needs to be done now. You can let them do it for a fee or do it yourself for a smaller fee as I outlined above.
 
My experience of it was that the organisation I was working for acquired business from another organisation & this business had approx 60 branches nationwide. Was long established, so some of the branches had been there decades. The acquisition included the properties as well as the business.

The deeds were held in a variety of places & were needed to register the properties with the new owner. Of the 60 approx. 20 were returned immediately with no problems. A further approx. 20 were returned after several months of chasing up. Approx 10 were lost and so legal declarations have to be obtained which was more hastle. The remaining 10 were a nightmare taking years to sort out, and as far as I'm aware, several years later there are still outstanding legal issues over the title registrations of a couple of these properties because the title deeds were never retrieved.

I understand that this is an different situation to the OP's in that these are business premises not residential and the problematic ones were generally where (i) the premises was 50+ years old or (ii) the deed holders had merged, taken over, reorganised, split etc. and didnt know where the deeds were located or even who was responsible for storage after a reorganisation.
 
Can't see how your experience as outlined above is in any way relevant to the original poster's situation with regards to a single set of deeds for a PPR residential property.
 
I assume banks store all their deeds the same way regardless of whether business or PPR?

the person at PTSB said there was no need to request them ( even though the mortgage is paid off ) until I really need them .. I asked ' so , you'll mind them free of charge ' and the lady replied 'yes'..
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PTSB arent a charity who store things free of charge, so I would be suspicious that the answer above is code for either (i) ".....we dont know where they are....." or (ii)".......we couldnt be bothered retrieving them......". Bear in mind that PTSB has merged/reorganised in recent years - similar circumstances to the problems I came across & I assume since mortgage is paid off, they were probably lodged with either the old TSB or Irish Permanent 20-30 years ago?
 
csirl said:
I assume banks store all their deeds the same way regardless of whether business or PPR?
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As far as I know if you lodge something for safe keeping with your branch then that is where it is stored unless you are otherwise told. That's the case with my deeds in my PTSB branch anyway.
PTSB arent a charity who store things free of charge
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Well they are storing mine FOC once the mortgage (which was with EBS) was cleared. I am nothing more than a current account and VISA card customer of theirs.
Bear in mind that PTSB has merged/reorganised in recent years - similar circumstances to the problems I came across & I assume since mortgage is paid off, they were probably lodged with either the old TSB or Irish Permanent 20-30 years ago?
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You mean mine? They were lodged with PTSB c. 2002. I think that this was after the last major organisational change (merger with IL&P Group)?
 
They're not a charity but it was (and appears still is to some places) a tradition to keep the deeds safe for a customer who has already paid a lot of money to the institution!

1. What are the consequences if the deeds are destroyed or lost? Are they not just copies of other documents?
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The registry of deeds certainly don't hold the originals. I have a heap of conveyances going back to 1930 odd in front of me and they are stamped by the registry of deeds that "they have been noted in their records". I think the corrct term is that they are "memorialised" in the RoD but they don't keep the conveyances.

Think it might be easier to get copies from the Land registry.

I only recently found out that land registration is not compulsory in Ireland and about 10% of the land is unregistered.
 
On a related issue. If you have cleared a mortgage and have (access to) the deeds is there any point in making a photocopy and keeping it separate in case the originals get lost? I know that such copies are not the same as the real thing but could they help in, for example, reassembling or re-collating the deeds in a worst case scenario?
 
1. What are the consequences if the deeds are destroyed or lost? Are they not just copies of other documents?
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In certain circumstances in order for the Land Reg to allow registration, a legal Declaration has to be made that the deeds are believed to be lost and every effort has been made to locate them. Details of searches made would have to be submitted along with the registration. Sometimes the Land Reg will ask for secondary evidence of the title and that further searches are done on the root title in land index, Land Commission, Valuations, national archives etc. to try and establish what type of title it would likely be. The titles of surrounding properties can be invaluable in this if the property was build on a plot of land that was subdivided e.g. row of houses where developer bought a patch of land and subdivided the plot into the individual houses. Land Reg are generally quite strict on registration and will not allow a registration without deeds unless they are very very very sure that the title is correct. Searches can be expensive as they can be very time consuming.
 

It would help a lot with establishing the title if originals lost.
 
I only recently found out that land registration is not compulsory in Ireland and about 10% of the land is unregistered.
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And a lot of the 90% registered land is not up to date regarding title especially where passed down through families.
 
csirl said:
I assume banks store all their deeds the same way regardless of whether business or PPR?
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Not strictly speaking true - where I used to work (large mortgage institution), PPR deeds were stored in the safe in the basement, commercial deeds were stored offsite.
 
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