Buying a home and don't know how anything works

[Glitter]

We didn’t get any when we bought ours last year.

 

[hash tag]

Interestingly (given that it was so soon after we were discussing it on this thread), last week I was sent a package through the post - it was from my mortgage company and it was all the deeds and documentation for this place, with a letter saying "this information is all held electronically by the Land Registry, we don't need to keep these and you don't need to provide these to future buyers".

So I'm certainly not paying anyone to keep them safe, they're on the bookcase with other important documents.

Thanks, I thought that was the case these days.

 

[xenon]

Are you waiting for someone (freeholder) to provide an EWS1 certificate?

I've got EWS1 certs. Yep 2 of them. First one, the lender didn't like the fire engineers credentials. Went back to vendor blah, blah. Second one, the postcode doesn't match the individual flat. Which doesn't seem that odd to me since the cert covers a whole block but apparently they won't pass this on to the valuer until it's amended.


Gone back to vendor. Fuck knows how long and if the management company will get it amended.

Each stage of this toing and froing shite has taken about 10 days, I haven't even started the searches yet cos there didn't seem any point.

Wasn't in a hurry to move. There's not much else round here at the same price, same size. I wondered about going to a different lender but aren't the valuers free lance, so imagined it could be the same individual that wants to see the EWS1 anyway... And since this building doesn't actually have cladding, some other thing that required a EWS1 am I not likely to get the same shit on any flat that isn't above retail. Which AFAIK has it's own issues. Can't afford a house.

 

[Elpenor]

Got my contract today so time to apply for a decision in principle

 

[marty21]

I guess that means you are now having to pay someone to store them safely and securely?

I guess we should ?

 

[hash tag]

I guess we should ?

Or not. See recent posts.

 

[kalidarkone]

I guess we should ?

I hadn't given it any thought, but mine are just sitting on the dining table and have been since they arrived a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Glitter]

I guess we should ?

Probably cheaper to buy a fireproof safe?

 

[hash tag]

We have kept our mortgage going with just a few quid. We get charged pennies in interest, the lender looks after our deeds.

 

[baldrick]

What's all this about deeds? Should we have been sent ours? I'm very confused

 

[equationgirl]

What's all this about deeds? Should we have been sent ours? I'm very confused

If you have a mortgage the deeds go to the bank. Once you own the property outright, the bank sends the deeds to you. It's customary to store the deeds off site for safety reasons (fire/flood damage) but by no means mandatory.

 

[Epona]

If you have a mortgage the deeds go to the bank. Once you own the property outright, the bank sends the deeds to you. It's customary to store the deeds off site for safety reasons (fire/flood damage) but by no means mandatory.

As I found out last week, if the property is registered the bank does not care any more about keeping docs.

(I would have given the same answer up until the mortgage company sent them to me with a "we're not storing these for you and you don't need to either" letter last week)

 

[oryx]

I thought title deeds were now electronically registered with the Land Registry thus negating the need for paper copies. We paid off our mortgage in 2018 and I don't remember getting any papers but seem to remember being told we didn't need them as they were with the Land Registry.

 

[oryx]

(I would have given the same answer up until the mortgage company sent them to me with a "we're not storing these for you and you don't need to either" letter last week)

I think we got a similar letter from the building society.

I seem to remember I was looking at lodging them with a solicitor but didn't need to.

 

[oryx]

I've just checked our house is registered with the Land Registry, didn't want to try and sell it in a few years and find out we were squatters or summat...

It is.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

is it worth another mention for land registry's alerts scheme, where they will e-mail you if someone tries to do anything like a search, register a mortgage against, or sell, a property

you can sign up on behalf of (for example) aged parents who don't do the internet as well. no charge for signing up.

 

[Epona]

is it worth another mention for land registry's alerts scheme, where they will e-mail you if someone tries to do anything like a search, register a mortgage against, or sell, a property

you can sign up on behalf of (for example) aged parents who don't do the internet as well. no charge for signing up.

Never too often to mention that, it also got mentioned on that money programme on TV earlier in the week.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

I guess that means you are now having to pay someone to store them safely and securely?

I have the lease for my flat in a metal box file. But copy was lodged with the Land Registry. It was a new lease, bought my flat under the Right to Buy. If I had original old deeds for an older property, I might lodge them somewhere for safekeeping.

I understand lots of banks used to offer a safety deposit box to customers as a paid for service, but I don't know if any of the high street banks still do, given all the branch closures and cutbacks.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

We didn’t get any when we bought ours last year.

Did you buy it with a mortgage? Because deeds used to be kept by the lender until the mortgage was paid off.

 

[equationgirl]

I do work on copied records sometimes, and it was a thing back in the 1980s and 1990s that once original documents were copied on microfiche, microfilm or early PDF format (generally pre-OCR). Which on the face of it, brilliant!!! Look at all the space we're saving, isn't it great to have electronic records etc

And it is great - if the documents were copied correctly and fully. But in many instances, pages were scanned at an angle, or the top was missing, or the bottom RH corner was folded over and obscuring something. Or (very common) only one side of a two sided document was copied, and half the file is missing.

And as the originals were often thrown away at the time of scanning, the information is lost forever.

So I am always wary of destroying originals, because I have seen the havoc wreaked because of it.

 

[equationgirl]

And don't get me started on filenames with misspellings - if your electronic file has a misspelling or a typo in it when it's loaded onto whatever system is used, it may not be easy found again.

Yes, scanners are much better now, but where humans are involved in the process, mistakes happen.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Made an offer yesterday. Will see what happens.

 

[equationgirl]

Made an offer yesterday. Will see what happens.

Fingers crossed, exciting stuff.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Fingers crossed, exciting stuff.

Paperwork’s going through and tbh I’m shitting myself with “what ifs”

 

[equationgirl]

Paperwork’s going through and tbh I’m shitting myself with “what ifs”

That's commonplace. Try to distract yourself with something else.

 

[Thora]

Survey done
Mortgage offer done
Searches done
Contracts signed and ready

Think we are almost there

 

[Epona]

Fingers crossed for both Artaxerxes and Thora

 

[Zapp Brannigan]

Can I join this thread please? Offer accepted (after much shenanigans by the estate agents, wankers), solicitors appointed, survey done, mortgage applied for (fingers crossed).

After a few years as renter class, all being well will be re-joining the ranks of the homeowner in this bad boy. Oh yeah, mock tudor facade

 

[Artaxerxes]

Is life insurance and income protection and all that jazz worth going for?

Made it 40 years with minimal insurance and crap health.

 

[Sue]

Is life insurance and income protection and all that jazz worth going for?

Made it 40 years with minimal insurance and crap health.

Do you (pl) have death in service benefits through work? It might be worth getting joint decreasing life cover with your partner in addition to pay off the mortgage if one of you dies. (Don't know anything really about income protection.)