Charges for returning my deeds.

Do you actually need the deeds? They have little practical use these days.

Whether they can justify it or not isn't the issue. Were you aware of this fee at ortgage outset? If they subsequently introduced it were you notified? Can they advise the date(s) you were notified and how? Bet they can't - in which case they will almost certainly waive the fee as a goodwill gesture.

Are you repaying the mortgage early or not? The amount isn't the issue.

For Halifax to assume that you don't want the deeds and will destroy them if you don't sent them 50 is unjustifiable and probably illegal. It is a sad fact that our legal system is so awful that anyone who has enough clout can make their own law. Write to them and tell them that you do want the deeds and that you are prepared to pay a reasonable sum for postage.

It would depend on the property. I was informed that a solicitor stole the deeds for my current house because of their historic value. I say "stole" because someone working in the office at the time heard him exclaim "look at this, they're handwritten on vellum and must be worth a bomb" and then what was delivered to the building society was a modern copy.

Wasn't this guy was it?

Does your mortgage contract say anything about a sum for returning the deeds? If not, tell them that you never agreed to pay for the return of the deeds and they are yours and you want them back F.O.C.

Marcus

Interesting. We just got our deeds from the bank and were considering having them put in safe storage. Should we not bother? The oldest documents are hand-written on vellum; the newest indicate that the house and garden are registered at the Land Registry (two separate registrations). And there's a whole lot of other bumf about previous residents' applications for planning permission for extensions and outbuildings, etc.

I made that comment to a solicitor who handed over a conveyance for the purchase of part of my garden recently. I had been forced to pay for the return of the house deeds when a Rent Charge company (Compton), invoked a clause which forced us to buy the rent charge or insure with their 'approved' insurers. The building Society required me to insure via them, in return for safe keeping of the deeds.

So I went online and re-insured with the approved company (Zurich), and recovered the deeds, which cost me about £75 after a refund of £20 on the insurance.

The insurance cost me less than half of what the B.S. were billing me for, and with better cover!

I still have the deeds here, plus the other conveyance.

Back to the solicitor, who admitted that most paper deeds were now redundant, but said that in any kind of dispute, the Courts "like to see a bit of paper".

Ashby?

Tiddy Ogg.

It would of course be foolish for me to give the solicitor's name in public, solicitors being noted for their litigious nature.