Q & A: Missing Title Deeds
Irish Independent Q & A article by Sinéad Ryan featuring Damian Woods, Solicitor Partner at Jacob Law LLP.
Below, we bring you the article in full.
Question
“I am probating my father’s estate and I cannot locate the deeds of the house which had been originally mortgaged to National Irish Bank, which obviously no longer exists. I don’t know where to start, but if they are lost, what do I need to do to get the estate sorted? I have tax to pay on it but I do have the original will.”
Answer
Losing deeds is certainly less of a problem than losing, or not having, a will. When a mortgage ends, banks attempt to return deeds to the property owner. In the past they were happy enough to lodge these in vaults but this doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
There are private vault companies which can store valuable documents for a fee, so do check if there’s a reference to this in your father’s papers.
I asked probate specialist Damian Woods of Jacob Law for his advice.
“Property is static, so the deed itself isn’t paramount. You need to prove its title in order to distribute assets according to the will,” he says.
“If the loan was redeemed prior to the transfer of NIB cases, it is possible that the original title deeds may have been lost or misplaced over time, and in some cases locating them can prove difficult. If the loan was still active at the time, the deeds may have been transferred to Danske Bank or, in some cases, to a loan servicer such as Pepper Finance.
However, if your father did not receive any correspondence from another lender or service provider, it is most likely that the deeds have simply been misplaced.
If the property is registered, it should display a folio number, and you can download a copy of the folio for a fee of €5.”
Once you have exhausted reasonable searches, he recommends the following steps.
“Carry out a search with Tailte Éireann by visiting their website as a guest user, selecting the search option, and entering the Eircode.
– If the property appears on this search, the absence of the original deeds should not present a difficulty, as the title is recorded electronically.
– If the property does not appear, then it it is likely not registered electronically and therefore the title is instead held in the Registry of Deeds.
In that case, you can arrange for searches to be carried out and obtain copies of memorials.
The process of reconstructing title in the Registry of Deeds can be more complex, and you would likely require the assistance of a solicitor to arrange to have a title bond put in place”.
If there are additional planning matters to be proven, then depending on whether the property was pre or post 1964 has a bearing, as that is when planning laws were introduced.Mr Woods reassures that this is not uncommon and “there is no particular cause for concern. It may take a bit of time and effort, and a solicitor would be able to assist you in reconstructing title if required”.From this year, under new compliance rules, deeds now need to be returned within 10 days of request by lenders where they are held, which is good news.
Irish Independent Q & A article by Sinéad Ryan
