House Deeds are Lost!!

Julesie

My aunt is in the process of selling her house at the moment but has hit a fairly major obstacle. Her mortgage provider IIB homeloans is telling her that in the six years since she moved her mortgage to them (previously with Permanent TSB) they have been unable to find the deeds to her house. For some reason they never thought to raise this issue before with her, but now without deeds she is unable to complete the sale of the house. For the past two weeks she has been getting the run around from all parties involved (including her solicitor at the time) with no one prepared to accept responsibility for these missing deeds. Has anyone here been in a similar situation or know what happens if the deeds truely are lost and how long it would take to get a replacement set drawn up.

Thanks in advance,

Sponge Bob

Solicitors give "UNDERTAKINGS" to supply them (if not present) track down who undertook to provide them to your solicitor. Hint, another solicitor.

6 years is long enough to reissue deeds,

The first thing to establish is who lost them. A solicitor must have given an undertaking to draw down funds. He either lodged the documents with the bank, in which case the buck stops with them, or he didn't, in which case he'll have to get the finger out and go back through his files. There are procedures in place for reissuing fresh title documents, but it can be a lengthy process and ultimately there must be a paper trail somewhere showing in whose hands the title deeds were when they were lost. Furthermore, the person who last held the deeds should lodge an affidavit confirming they were not lodged as security and indemnifying the Land Registry (if it's Land Registry land) from any problems caused by reissuing title, so it is important to establish who had them last.