Where to keep Mortgage deeds?

[lappyboy]

I am paying off my mortgage soon and wondered if anyone had a dvise on the best place to keep the house deeds?

I understand you can leave a small amount on the mortgage and the bank will hold the deeds - how much is a small amount?

I don't want to keep the deeds at home, so a solicitor could be the other option but I'm not sure about the cost??

[morg_monster]

My grandad paid all but 50p of his mortgage so the bank kept the deeds.  I believe it is genuinely a very small amount like this, although it may vary form bank to bank.

[Sammy Snake]

Most Banks will keep them in storage for you for a charge of about �5 per year.

[brachiopod]

50p rings a bell with me, too.

If you leave this amount of your mortgage unpaid, the Bank / Building Society will store your Deeds for you. They will, of course, charge a fee for access to, or copies of your deeds, so you may want to pay this to have a good look at them for curiosity's sake and make copies of certain information.

Later, when you suddenly decide to write a novel about the history of your property, or when your neighbour starts knocking down your fence and building a wall on your flower beds, (as seems to be happening to quite a few of our AB-ers lately), there will be no need to pay for Deeds access again, as you will already have copies of the information you need. 

[PlainJane]

Under the bed.
Seriously.
If the title to your property is registered at HM Land Registry, then what counts is what is on their rinky tinky computer. The paper deeds will no longer have any legal value, although if there is some old stuff there it might have historic or curiosity value.
As a foot note it is just possible that your title is unregisterd, in which case you can voluntarily register your title at HM Land Registry and then put the paperwork under the bed.

[zmudge]

You do not need to keep the deeds anywhere, they are useless and can be burnt. The only thing that counts now is how your property is Registered at the Land Registry, nothing else. To see this and make a copy click this link and follow the instructions

http://www.landregisteronline.gov.uk/servlet/TitleSearchServlet

After you have paid off your mortgage you should visit the Registry again to check that the lender has lifted the charge that will be there whilst the mortgage exists.

[smudge]

We left a �1 in the B/S & they are still holding the deeds for us.

[zmudge]

If you feel that the advice you have received is contradictory click this link

http://www.landreg.gov.uk/regional/offices/

to find your local District Land Registry Office and telephone them to obtain confirmation that the advice by Plain Jane and zmudge is correct.

[insurance]

we have left �1 owing on our mortgage with the alliance & leicester.we get a statement every year balance �1

it is called deed care.To actually get hold of the deeds

Ithink it is called sealing there is a charge of �150

[pinkgeek]

zmudge and PlainJane's advice is correct : I paid my mortgage off last year and did some research into this.
It used to be the case that you had to keep them securely but since about 2002, it's only what's on the Land Registry's computer that counts which is why you'll find that your building society are unlikely to be so generous about keeping your deeds if you leave a token amount left. The Halifax were going to start changing me an annual fee if I left less that (i think) �100 on the mortgage.