I am helping my elderly mother sort out some paperwork and have hit a wall with something I did not expect. She has a small terraced house in Barnsley which she bought in 1986 with a mortgage from the Halifax (as it was then). The mortgage was fully repaid in 2003. She has the redemption statement from the time, and I have a copy of it.
I recently ordered a copy of the title register from the Land Registry out of curiosity and to check everything was in order. There is still a charge registered against the property in favour of Halifax plc. It was never removed when the mortgage was paid off. I suspect the solicitor handling the redemption at the time simply did not bother, or perhaps she never instructed one and just paid it off directly.
My question is what the process is for getting this removed now. Halifax has obviously been through several corporate changes since 2003 (Halifax, HBOS, Lloyds). Is there a specific department at Lloyds Banking Group that handles historic charge removals? And can this be done without instructing a solicitor, given that she has the original redemption statement?
I would rather avoid paying £300 or more in legal fees if this is something that can be dealt with by writing to the right address with the right documents. She is 81 and has no plans to sell, but I would like to get the title tidied up while we still have all the paperwork to hand.
I had something similar crop up when I was selling my flat earlier this year, though in my case it was a second charge from a long-forgotten secured loan with Northern Rock, which as you can imagine led to a merry dance through the ruins of NRAM and then UK Asset Resolution and eventually whoever inherited their filing cabinets. In the end my solicitor wrote to them with the redemption details and they sent back a signed DS1 form within about three weeks, which the solicitor then submitted to the Land Registry. I believe you can also apply to the Land Registry directly using form CN1 if the lender has ceased to exist or is unresponsive, but for Lloyds they should still have a process since they are very much still around. Whether you can do it without a solicitor, I would say yes in theory, but getting the lender to actually engage with a member of the public rather than another solicitor is the hard part, so it might depend on your patience for being passed between departments.
Thanks @Frankie91, that is useful to know it got resolved in the end. The complication in my case is that the building society (Bradford and Bingley) no longer exists as such, it was nationalised back in 2008 and the mortgage book ended up with UK Asset Resolution or possibly Santander depending on which part. My mother has the original completion letter showing the mortgage was paid off in 1998 but no formal DS1 was ever filed. I have been going round in circles trying to work out who actually has authority to execute a discharge now. Did you (or your solicitor) have to track down a successor entity for the Northern Rock charge, or was there a shortcut through Land Registry directly?
@mrc_barnsley74, in my case the solicitor tracked it to NRAM (which was the Northern Rock rump that ended up in government hands) and they had a specific department that dealt with historic charge removals, though it took about six weeks from the initial request to actually getting the DS1 filed. For Bradford and Bingley I would imagine it is a similar setup, the residual entity is Bradford and Bingley plc (in special administration) and I believe UK Asset Resolution handled it until they wound down, at which point it may have transferred again. I would honestly start by writing to Land Registry with the original redemption letter and asking whether they can remove the charge on the strength of that, because sometimes they will if the evidence is clear enough and the charge is decades old. Failing that, a conveyancing solicitor who has dealt with defunct lenders before should be able to locate whoever now holds the seal.
Quick update on this. I tracked the Bradford and Bingley mortgage records to UK Asset Resolution, which is the same outfit that handles the old Northern Rock stuff @Frankie91 mentioned. Rang them on Thursday and after a fairly long hold they confirmed they do have the records and the mortgage was redeemed in full in 2003. They said they can issue a DS1 form but it needs to be requested formally in writing, either by a solicitor or by the registered owner with a signed authority. My mother has signed the letter and I posted it yesterday, so now it is a waiting game. The person on the phone said it could take four to six weeks, which seems absurd for what is basically a confirmation of something they already know, but there we are. Does anyone know from experience whether it actually takes that long or whether that is just the standard disclaimer they give everyone?