Title Deeds - where are they?

We have the original title deeds for our house - but trying to make sense of the measurements for the land attached to it is interesting to say the least. It's all in 'rods and poles'!

We repaid our mortgage in the 90s (bar a nominal amount, so the Building Society would store the deeds). Last year, we decided to clear this amount (in order to make things easy for our children when they inherit) and the Building Society (the Halifax) still had our deeds and handed them over; so not all lenders are destroying deeds of registered properties.

One of my duties in my job at the Council was to archive all the title deeds of land owned by the Council. Some of the deeds were very old and absolutely fascinating. There is an old RAF base that was owned by the Crown (now a housing estate) and the deed is amazing- hand written on vellum and has a huge seal attached to it, which is stored in a tin to preserve it. I'm a real fan of local history and spent many a happy hour studying the numerous ancient deeds in our possession.

Lenders didn’t destroy deeds, the Land Registry did.

That's criminal GSM

In Scotland there is the law of the Common Good, an ancient royal charter whereby land was given to Burghs to be used for the good of everyone.
Leap forward 1000years and much of this land has been grabbed used by councils to make money. Land has been built on and sold. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Good_Fund

Mortgage lender will have details and land registry

Our deeds, such as they are, were returned to us when we repaid our mortgage. The Land Registery, never got their stickylittle hands on them

My DS worked for a firm of solicitors for a while and was given the task of clearing out and destroying many old records. Manyof the records contained beautiful hand drawn and water colour painted plans and maps. She rescued as many of the maps as possible, and was allowed to keep them!! i have a couple hanging on a wall.

This was in the 1970s. By the 1980s I knew better and would hve recommended that she speak to the County Archivist about placing these records in the County Record Office. The information in them was 50 years old or more, and the company could always have put an embargo on their release for public access if they had any confidentiality concerns.

Germanshepherdsmum

Lenders didn’t destroy deeds, the Land Registry did.

How? The Land Registry don't hold deeds, not to any of my properties anyway, why would they? I've had paper deeds returned to me from a mortgage lender within the last 18 months or so when the mortgage was paid off. The label on the documents shows that the lender had been storing them securely with Iron Mountain, a well known document secure storage facility.

The LR used to hold pre-registration deeds which were relevant to the title, containing covenants and so forth. Gradually all were digitised and the originals destroyed.

I have been involve in a couple of charities that owned property going back hundreds of years. In both cases, the deeds were held, at no charge, by local solicitors.
In both cases, we did a voluntary registration with LR, as it can help around planning permission, and in one case, a boundary dispute. In both cases, the LR returned the documents to the solicitors - quite unnecessary (I suggested the County archives. M0nica) but there was a strong sense of wanting to keep the status quo.

I demand a public enquiry!!
I am horrified to hear that public bodies are so cavalier about precious documents.
How can they destroy title deeds without at least giving the landowner some say in what happens to them.
I will be sad and furious in equal measure if it turns out the original deeds have been destroyed.

Sad but true Gramaretto. However that’s in England and Wales - I think you’re in Scotland?

No doubt they will claim there's no room to store them, especially when they are digitised.
It's like old books in libraries. They get chucked.