Do I need a solicitor to deal with my mortgage redemption ?

Merlin

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Good morning,
Looking for more excellent advice from the askaboutmoney community!

I have been able to clear my mortgage recently and just received the deeds from the bank. In their letter, they advise me to instruct my solicitor to discharge the bank's security on my behalf. I'm a bit confused by this - isn't that what the bank has just done by releasing the deeds to me?

Also, any idea where to keep the deeds? My solicitor said they no longer store these type of documents for safekeeping.

thank you!
Merlin
 
they advise me to instruct my solicitor to discharge the bank's security on my behalf.
Although you have physical possession of the title deeds you will find the bank still has a charge registered over your property folio/s at the Land Registry. These will need to be cancelled which is why they suggest you get a solicitor to do this.

Storage is a problem area with fewer solicitors offering this service nowadays (from my limited experience). There are commercial storage facilities out there which are relatively inexpensive - you just need to do a browser search to find them and get comfortable with their security measures etc. I can't vouch for any as I went the route of buying and installing a fireproof safe to store my deeds and other personal effects. Bottom line is use a storage method you are comfortable with.
 
I have been able to clear my mortgage recently and just received the deeds from the bank. In their letter, they advise me to instruct my solicitor to discharge the bank's security on my behalf. I'm a bit confused by this - isn't that what the bank has just done by releasing the deeds to me?

I got all my title documents etc a few years ago.

The bank advised that, as the title is Registry of Deeds, I or my solicitor will need to lodge the enclosed form 7 with the enclosed vacated mortgage in the Registry of Deeds, to have the banks charge removed from the Register.

I did it myself.

Got the lot back a few weeks later confirming application complete with the Vacate registered, dated, stamped etc by the Property Registration Authority.
 
Why not store the documents at home?

What is going to happen? A burglar robs them and sells your house from under you?

Brendan
 
I’m sure the burglar could not sell my house.

Problem is though, I might not be able to easily sell it either if my title deeds / documents are stolen or destroyed.

No doubt there is a way to sell without having the documents, but surely an unnecessary complication.

I also have gone for the fireproof safe at home option.
 
Thank you! I'll have a go at it myself so. I wasn't so worried about a burglary, it was more a fire I was thinking off. Will have a look at storage facilities.
Appreciate your advice a lot as usual.
Merlin
 
Why not store the documents at home?

What is going to happen? A burglar robs them and sells your house from under you?

Brendan

I have been thinking about this, and sure there is a risk of title deeds being stolen from a home as much as there is a risk of them being stolen from the strong room/safe at a solicitor's office. There is nothing stopping the determined burgler as Lidl Tallaght found out.

Assuming title deeds are stolen, how easy is it really to use them fraudulently to sell the property or remortgage and run off with the proceeds? I'm guessing it is not as straightforward as Brendan makes out but I'd like to understand and mitigate the risks of this happening by identifying the steps a fraudster would need to follow to carrying this off.

Anyone care to elaborate?
 
Your deeds are important documents but not as important as most people think.
If the property is registered then the folio number is all you need as proof of ownership. You deeds will have been copied by the land registry and you can access a copy of them at any time (for a fee). Your deeds will contain more information about the property than your folio will, e.g. details of planning permission, certs of compliance, agreement with management company etc.

If your property is unregistered i.e. registry of deeds you should register it with the land registry, its state guaranteed.

With relation to Brendans query about burglar selling your home, it more common than you think especially in the UK which operates the same systems as here.
If you have a house rented out, don't use the address of the rental on your land registry folio, identity theft is easier. I have not heard of any cases in ireland but it s a matter of time.

Land Registry in England and Wales, show fraud of £24.9m in 2017. Since September 2009, it has prevented frauds on 254 applications, representing properties valued in excess of £117m.

search
Help! My house has been hijacked
 
Thanks @SOBRIEN

What's happened over in the UK made for interesting reading - a wake up call perhaps.

So if I understand you correctly the fraudster doesn't even need my title deeds. All s/he needs to do is steal my identity via forged docs or a change of name by deed poll, and then use that identity to get what's needed from land registry. S/he would then need to convince a conveyancing solicitor or lender they are who they claim to be to successfully pull off the sale/remortgage fraud. Is that it in a nutshell?

It would be easy to preempt this if the Land Registry here offered an 'alert service' to notify Homeowners of any pending changes to folios, similar to what the UK Land Registry do. I could not find anything on their website so have reached out via email to find out if they intend to do so in future. If I hear back I will update the thread.
 
I could not find anything on their website so have reached out via email to find out if they intend to do so in future. If I hear back I will update the thread.

The response I received from Land Registry advised they do not provide an 'alert service', however they suggested I look at Cautions and Inhibitions on the prai.ie website to see if that is an option worth pursuing.

I've had a quick read up on this and basically if you think you are at risk from land or property fraud, you can apply to have an inhibition registered on the folio. This prevents Land Registry registering a sale or mortgage on your land or property without your consent.

So if your identity is stolen, or you rent out your property, or the property isn't mortgaged there is at least a mechanism to mitigate fraud risk.

Not sure I'll be pursuing this just yet, but good to know it's available so will discuss with my solicitor at some point in the future.

P.S. Apologies if this topic has hijacked the OP question, it just followed on from a comment made by Brendan so seemed logical to keep the discussion here rather than a new thread.
 
"Your deeds will contain more information about the property than your folio will, e.g. details of planning permission, certs of compliance, agreement with management company etc. "


No, no, no, no, no, no,no..........

A folio is proof of Title but goes no further than that.

mf
 
Hello! I just thought I provide an update on how I got on this with this after receiving your very valued advice:
1. Went to a solicitor and asked for a quote if they were doing the whole lot for me. Approx 500 Euro but the
very fair solicitor said to me that she thinks I could do it myself no problem.

2. So off I went - tried to navigate the PRAI website but couldn't really figure which forms I needed, had a problem downloading one of the
ones I had identified (I would consider myself computer literate but even after downloading the latest adobe version I still couldn't get it). So I called the land registry
and they are very helpful and patient. While I had him on the phone I also asked him about "storing" the deeds ie. would he recommend putting them in storage somewhere.
The answer I got there and later in person when I went in to do the actual registration was that as long as you e register the deeds there is absolutely no reason to pay money to
store them.
Got my letter today that all is complete and am happy I saved 500 Euros! E registration cost 5 Euro and I just did that too.

Thanks again for getting me going on that
 
We got our deeds a couple of months ago but didn't realise we needed to do anything else. Must look into it.
 
"The answer I got there and later in person when I went in to do the actual registration was that as long as you e register the deeds there is absolutely no reason to pay money to
store them. "

He is referring to the Folio.

He is not referring to e.g "details of planning permission, certs of compliance, agreement with management company etc. "

mf
 
Hello! I just thought I provide an update on how I got on this with this after receiving your very valued advice:
1. Went to a solicitor and asked for a quote if they were doing the whole lot for me. Approx 500 Euro but the
very fair solicitor said to me that she thinks I could do it myself no problem.

2. So off I went - tried to navigate the PRAI website but couldn't really figure which forms I needed, had a problem downloading one of the
ones I had identified (I would consider myself computer literate but even after downloading the latest adobe version I still couldn't get it). So I called the land registry
and they are very helpful and patient. While I had him on the phone I also asked him about "storing" the deeds ie. would he recommend putting them in storage somewhere.
The answer I got there and later in person when I went in to do the actual registration was that as long as you e register the deeds there is absolutely no reason to pay money to
store them.
Got my letter today that all is complete and am happy I saved 500 Euros! E registration cost 5 Euro and I just did that too.

Thanks again for getting me going on that

How long did it take to get confirmation from them in the post? I did the same. Went into the Land registry to take Bos off the deeds as an interested party(had been like that for over a year without me realizing until BoS sent me a letter to say some laws had changed and I had to personally get them taken off the deeds, even though it was supposedly done by them, or their reps Pepper, over a year ago)

Anyway it was very straight forward. They were extremely helpful in the land registry office at the four courts. There was hardly anyone there. Took about 15 minutes to complete the forms with them and I think the charge was €40.

Anyway was told I would get confirmation out in the,post but haven’t received anything yet. That was 3, maybe 4 weeks ago.
 
I'm trying to follow the advice above and register the deeds for my parents' mortgage free house.

Which form do I fill out? Not very clear. Seems Form 6 is best bet?

 
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