lost deeds

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amofeeney

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hi, i am just wondering if anyone can advise me as i feel like i am banging my head of a wall for the past 3 months.
We bought an apartment in Dublin in 1983 from a company called Minaret Holdings ltd. We have our recipt from the solicitor at the time and our original mortgage book for Irish Permanant. We took out the mortgage in June 1983 and redeemed it in September of the same year.
We have tried to sell recently and it has transpired that the solicitor says they have no history of the transaction or the deeds. Irish Perm say they don't keep records any longer than 6 years and thus have nothing for us. Now there is no memorial of the dded in the rigstry of deeds as it appears it was never registerd and to compound matters..there is no mortgage ever registered in our names.
Where can i go from here to get into a position to sell this property?? My solicitor seems to be acting on the go slow and nothing much has moved forward since july.
 
Do you mean that when you cleared the mortgage you never collected the deeds from the lender once their interest was removed?

If you are not happy with your solicitor get another one who can advise you properly on this matter.
 
yes at the time we paid off the mortgage we paid a redemption penalty and were told they'd be forwarded onto our solicitor at an appropriate time. we never followed up on this because we assumed our solicitor would be holding them in safekeeping, as we would have been giving them back to him to do this with had we gotten them.
Our solicitor has all our files etc and switching now would complicate matters further
 
amofeeney said:
Our solicitor has all our files etc and switching now would complicate matters further
Click to expand...
You need legal advice on the matter. If your existing solicitor is not providing a satisfactory service then you really need to consider moving no matter what hassle it causes. Is this the same solicitor as you used originally? The one that seemingly never processed things correctly in particular the registration of the deeds? :eek:
 
In 1983 purchases with mortgages were often done by three-way closing. The purchaser's solicitor, vendor's solicitor and bank's solicitor would all get together in one room. The purchaser's solicitor and bank's solicitor would check the deeds, the bank would hand over the cheque - and crucially from your point of view, take the deeds to deal with stamping and registration. When you paid off the mortgage the bank should have contacted you to arrange for the return of the deeds. If you are not getting satisfactory answers from your current solicitor I suggest that you go to another one, preferably one who has experience of pre 1992 conveyancing practice. Any good solicitor would in any event be able to get this information via the Law Society. You would have been dealing with either Irish Permanent or TSB at the time, the relevant bank should be telling your or your solicitor what their proceedures were at the time and what solicitor they were using for property in your area. I presume you have checked that the property is not registered in the land registry, even if it was there will be ancillary documentation to be found. Once you have established who is responsible for this mess, if they can't sort it I suggest you sue them.
 
No and apparently thats the problem. our solicitor says that because we chose no to sell through the original solicitor that they are probably being awkward to delay us on purpose!
I feel that our solicitor is doing what needs to be done but it is a very slow moving thing and i ned answers as to what I can do next.
My solicitor is still working on the basis that the deed will show up but i need to know where i can go next if this does not happen.
 
sorry guys. first ever post i will be more cautious in future.

yep i checked the land registry and have done numerous searches in registry of deeds using any kind of piece of info fromthe time just to cover all possibilities...nothing! Also the fact that the mortgage is not registered is really worrying me.
is ther any hope of me ever being able to sell?
 
I've just been onto our solcitor and he says that he will not move anything forward until all parties come back and state categorically that they DO NOT have the deeds. Unfort they both (solicitor from the time and the PTSB) both seem reluctant to do this and keep saying they are still looking.
Is this genuinely hopeful or are they just delaying accepting liability for the loss. bear in mind i first requested them on July 20th.
 
UPDATE*****
just got an email from the original solicitor from the transaction in 1983. basically saying they have no files older than 10 years and the they place full responsibility for the deeds on the Irish Permanent. they say when they stopped being the acting solicitor for Irish permanent that they returned all documents to the IP. the phrase tehy use is "We can assure you that the buck stops with Irish Permanent" where does this leave me now?
 
I guess you have to go back to IP about this. I wonder would a complaint about this fall under the remit of the [broken link removed] by any chance?
 
well unless IP do something to sort this soon then that is definatly a course of action i will take. Although I am still not entirely happy to let that solicitor get away so lightly and think i will talk to the law society.
 
update.
My solicitor had said that he could contact the management company and obtain a counterpart lease which would enable us to construct deeds. Turns out the management company legal team do not have a lease for our property and are flummoxed as to why this would be the case. it really seems now that something fradulent occured 23 years ago when we were buying this property.

My solicitor seems to be saying well i've exhausted all avenues now so just accept the situation that you can never sell this property...surely this cannot be right?

So despite the fact that i have a mortgage book stating irish Perm granted us a mortgage on the property, a receipt from the solicitor at the time of the purchase ..i am being tols there is nothing i can do.

There is no registration of deed, of mortgage, no lease and no paper trail whatsoever. How do i move forward from this? please give me something i can confront my solcitor with to move him forward???!!
 
you think so? i'm unsure as IP have seemed to be very helpful and it really should have been the solicitor who took responsibility for registering documents?
i'm not sure how much luck i'll have with Law society either!
 
It really doesn't matter how helpful Irish Permanent have been, the fact remains that your deeds are missing. Don't feel sorry for anyone...do what you have to do to get the problem sorted. That would be my position anyway. Otherwise you'll be like piggy in the middle between IP's old solicitor and themselves. The buck stops with them...they should have your deeds in their possession. In fact I would also contact the Law Society and inform them of the situation. This is all very strange. I've heard of deeds not being registered for a couple of years due to laziness on behalf of solicitors but I've never heard anything like your case before.

IMO this has gone on long enough and you should start making some real noise. Your current solicitor's position is ludicrous....you can never sell?? As ramble says, if this is not sorted, start looking for someone to sue!!!
 
thank you, i feel so frustrated and helpless. the babnk claim that they never got the deeds because the mortgage was redeemed so quickly. i'm going to start running amok on monday!
 
I know it sounds exhausting and complicated - but I would at least make a call to another solicitor about this matter and see if they would be willing and able to represent you in this matter.

After all - look at all the chasing YOU have done, when effectively, this is exactly what a solicitor is hired to do. You simply cannot accept that your solicitor is stating you cannot sell this property - that is his cop-out of exactly what he is hired to do. There will be other legal complications with this property other than the fact that you cant sell it! What would happen if you died - the property could not be left to your next of kin, because technically theres no trace of you owning it as it was never registered to you. There are several worries about this situation other than the obvious.

Call another solicitor, arrange an appointment and talk through it with them. If they agree with you and seem happy to persue it, then go ahead and switch solicitor as it seems your own has no more interest in the case.
 
i've emailed full details..exactly like contained in this thread to a few diff soliciotrs and nobodys gotten back to me saying they can help. plus i've been told that my current solicitor will bump his fees up to try to cover what he wud have got had the transactions gone through and i really dont want to have to pay him a huge sum for work that basically i done and then passed onto him. I mean of course i'm willing to pay for letters etc and searches he's done but most of the chasing inc registrty of deeds and land i have done myself and given him the printed results!
I can't believe nobody can just say to me "ok here is what we need to do to rectify this situation!"
 
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