Deeds!

[philpjuk100]

OK just collected the deeds for my house,what does this mean?-"with the rights and easements and rights in the nature of easements specified in the schedule hereto but save and except out of the conveyance hereby made the rights and easements short particulars of which are specified in the scheule hereto are specified etc,etc. there are five pages of this !! (I wanted velum and big red seals but just got gobbeldegook !)
phil.

 

[Lime]

The vellum and big seals were burnt in the 70s after the Land Registry replaced the requirement to keep them.

 

[Pford75]

That rather depends on your solicitor. Ours (my father) managed to find our deeds and pass them on to us for safe keeping (although apparently they have no legal value any more).

Rights and easements can be important when they relate to old houses (whether drainage easements, rights of access etc.) I'm surprised that your solicitor didnt explain any easements to you at the time of purchase. Sadly today, conveyance has become a 'bargain basement' activity...but with old houses there really is value in paying a little bit more for a decent conveyancer.

 

[vicky whitworth]

When does the gobbledegook date from?
My deeds contain loads of rubbish like that and I was told that lawyers would get paid more for a big chunky document and since the 'owner' couldn't read they padded it out to make it look good value. Our early deeds are all signed with an X so presumably the owner couldn't even sign his name so this rings true especially as huge parts of the deeds repeat sections in exactly the same words. It's a scam :lol:
They do have big red sealing wax stamps though.

 

[philpjuk100]

A Subsidiary Vesting Deed dated the eighth of August one thousand nine hundred and twenty nine and made between J.H. and F.W.Green of the first part,Lord Blakenham (then the Hounourable John Hugh Hare aforsaid) of the second part.A trustee of the will and codicil(herinafter together called "the will") of the late right honourable Richard Granville Earl of Listowel for the purpose of the settled land act 1925.Oh I think I get it now! (not)
There is a great heap of this stuff,I will never have the time to go through it or the brains to understand it although there are some great drawings and maps.Most of it is late 1800s/early 1900s before this the house was part of a large estate.i think i will just file it all away ( I have a three draw filing cabinet and this lot will fill a draw on its own! phil.(jealous of your seals though! I have not found any yet!)

 

[FamilyWiggs]

My father was a solicitor and thus he used to do all our own conveyancing. He got a lot of stick from the other side's solicitors because he wrote in very plain English and called their bluff. Some of his conveyances were a single side of plain A4 - essentially "Mr A sells Mr B this house for £x, as shown on the map in red"; not a single Whereforeuntohowever in sight.

He was a Crown Prosecutor and was equally plain speaking in court - we used to go up to Town on Boxing Day when he was prosecuting places like Marylebone Magistrates Court with all the vermin that were arrested over the Christmas period. As I boy, I felt a twinge of pride when he used to describe in a well spoken but not overly posh accent things like "Sir, As Mr Hughes was being arrested for urninating against the windows of WH Smith at half-past nine yesterdy evening, he spat in the face of PC Jones the arresting officer and advised him to "F*ck off you bastard"". It cut right through the court, and usually resulted in the stipe banging up the scroat for the rest of the holiday period.

None of those weasily, clever, obfuscatory, sesquipedalian words barristers are prone to wrap their fees up in - just a clear, concise and well communicated account of the fact. Simple and effective.

If only much of life was the same.

 

[philpjuk100]

Know what you mean about courts F-W,I was on jury duty a few years ago and we were "sent out" while a point of law was discussed,on returning the judge told us there had been some trouble while we were out,he told us the accused called the witness a dog and a whore and she had made a sign (he then sorted through his notes ) and held up two fingers! and said"thus" and she told the accused to "fark orf" (did he really need a drawing for a two finger salute?) phil.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

"Sir, As Mr Hughes was being arrested for urninating against the windows of WH Smith at half-past nine yesterdy evening, he spat in the face of PC Jones the arresting officer and advised him to "F*ck off you bastard"". It cut right through the court, and usually resulted in the stipe banging up the scroat for the rest of the holiday period.

That was all a very long time ago. And it was Timothy White's, not WH Smith.

 

[worms]

"Sir, As Mr Hughes was being arrested for urninating against the windows of WH Smith at half-past nine yesterdy evening, he spat in the face of PC Jones the arresting officer and advised him to "F*ck off you bastard"". It cut right through the court, and usually resulted in the stipe banging up the scroat for the rest of the holiday period.

That was all a very long time ago. And it was Timothy White's, not WH Smith.

...they do say "your deeds will find you out"!

 

[Penners]

"Sir, As Mr Hughes was being arrested for urninating against the windows of WH Smith at half-past nine yesterdy evening, he spat in the face of PC Jones the arresting officer and advised him to "F*ck off you bastard"". It cut right through the court, and usually resulted in the stipe banging up the scroat for the rest of the holiday period.

That was all a very long time ago. And it was Timothy White's, not WH Smith.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

So that's why Timothy White's & Taylor's went bust. People wouldn't go near the place because of the smell.

 

[Penners]

A Subsidiary Vesting Deed

That's exactly what I do on a cold morning.

 

[still_adrianth]

As for old deeds being of no legal value, I spent a while on the gardenlaw website a while ago, and was left with the impression that in a boundary dispute with the neighbours, the oldest surviving plan holds sway. I seem to remember that the documents one gets from the land reg these days do state that the boundary shown on the present diagrams is indicative only, not to be used in such a dispute.

If this is so, people who ditch old deeds are making a big mistake (I think some solicitors bin them automatically during conveyancing).

Anyone here know for sure?

 

[Pford75]

Simply not true.

The key problem being that the older the deed, the more possible it becomes that is was superseded by a later alteration or covenant. Our oldest deeds show our boundaries (of the original Shropham 'hundred') extending across the entire village. On the basis of 'oldest deed wins', we would own the entire village!

These original deeds have been updated and altered over the years with countless other deeds as land was sold, covenants agreed and new properties built. Land registry may claim 'not to be used in event of a dispute' (but this is really just to safeguard their own sloppy standards.

In the event of a boundary dispute a solicitor will seek to build an Unbroken history of deeds to the present time. This will include the current deeds at the land registry. If it can be demonstrated that in the deeds for the last 12 years (for example) a boundary has always been in the same place across perhaps 1 or 2 title transfers, then it is highly unlikely that a court would side with another party presenting only a 200 year old deed showing it in a different position. The court would merely conclude that at some point between the original deed and the recent history, there was a change for which the documentation no longer exists.

That said, original deeds can be of value if the chain is unbroken and there is a sudden change which isn't 'agreed'. I also believe that the deeds are as much an important part of the listing of a property as the lime plaster, windows or architectural details. In my view, destroying deeds to a LB should require LBC.

 

[LadyArowana]

That said, original deeds can be of value if the chain is unbroken and there is a sudden change which isn't 'agreed'. I also believe that the deeds are as much an important part of the listing of a property as the lime plaster, windows or architectural details. In my view, destroying deeds to a LB should require LBC.

I agree, I was very upset to discover that the deeds to our house ( 1767 ) were no longer available. We know that the previous owners had them up until the time they remortgaged sometime in the late 1990's/ early 2000's. They left a whole bunch of old leases etc that were redundant but we never knew what happened to the actual deed. Our solicitor wasn't helpful on the matter either. So it is lost which is extremely sad.

On the boundary matter I can see the wisdom of needing the chain. Our garage is built on the end of a garden of a nearby property, probably in the 1970's when that house was divided into apartments, it would be annoying if someone had that deed and nationalised our parking. Referencing another post about restrictive covenants etc, the garage deed states in very flowery language that we can't put a window in the end wall ( and presumably look into their garden ) or complain about plants growing on it :lol:

 

[CliffordPope]

I used to think the "deeds" were just a certificate, like in Monopoly. When I asked my solicitor if he would send me mine he pointed out the deeds occupied a large tin trunk.

Our business bought part of a derelict railway station for refurbishment. The deeds included Victorian documents complete with seals, and were absolutely vital for tracing the sequence of conveyances and establishing the existence of rights of way, easements, etc. Some were others' rights against us, others were our rights against others.
Our solicitor said it was the most complicated conveyance he had ever done, and involved decyphering old handwriting to untangle the sequence of old railway company amalgamations. Fascinating stuff. Railtrack hadn't bothered with any of it before, so as a result had a very flaky title to what in reality was obviously theirs.

 

[philpjuk100]

I used to think the "deeds" were just a certificate, like in Monopoly. When I asked my solicitor if he would send me mine he pointed out the deeds occupied a large tin trunk.

.

I have found the number of documents in the deeds pack a problem,they look as if they have been "shuffled" and are not in any order,if I get time I intend to separate the maps/drawings from the docs/conveyances and then try to put both in date order but the number of items will make this a huge task.There are many drawings with lbc approval stamps which have been superceded but cannot find a plan which is as the house is now! but maybe I have just not found it yet! phil.

 

[Penners]

Thankfully, our deeds have not been destroyed, and were passed to us by the vendors when we bought the property. They include some absolutely beautiful hand-written indentures, lease agreements and so on. I'm tempted to frame some of them, but I'm afraid the constant exposure to light might be deleterious.

I don't know how well this will reproduce at computer monitor resolution, but here's the last page of 3-page deed document, dated 1814. It measures about 2ft 6in wide x 2ft high (I couldn't bring myself to use metric measurements!) and is written in the most beautiful copper-plate script on heavy, vellum-like paper, with proper red wax seals at the bottom. We've got about a dozen such beautiful items in the deeds.

Things like this were produced in days when a legal transaction was regarded as something almost reverential.

 

[LadyArowana]

Thankfully, our deeds have not been destroyed, and were passed to us by the vendors when we bought the property. They include some absolutely beautiful hand-written indentures, lease agreements and so on. I'm tempted to frame some of them, but I'm afraid the constant exposure to light might be deleterious.

The place I have our framing done claims to do framing with museum quality stuff that cuts out nearly all harmful rays. It's not the cheapest option by any means ( they offer regular service much cheaper ) but might be worth considering. It seems a shame for them to languish unseen.

http://www.merlin.com.sg/conservation_framing.html

 

[Feltwell]

I agree with LadyA, seems a shame to have those hidden away. We had a poster framed with special glass that was supposed to help stop fading - it's hung out of direct sunlight as a further precaution, but 10 years on there's no sign of fading. Although it's modern inks it wouldn't have been a top quality bit of printing, with it only being a temporary promotional poster.

We have our deeds - sort of! We've got a typewritten transcript that was taken in 1940 - I'm presuming it was done to make the deeds more readable, and the originals were thrown away then

 

[MdB]

We have our deeds - sort of! We've got a typewritten transcript that was taken in 1940 - I'm presuming it was done to make the deeds more readable, and the originals were thrown away then

We don't even have the transcript, just typed stuff dating from around 1940. :evil: