Old Deeds Search

Old Deeds Search

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Article Summary

The old Deeds referred to in this article are mainly those which have been lodged with the Land Registry to support an application for First Registration, and also those lodged since, when there have been applications for subsequent registrations. The Land Registry retain many of these Deeds, taking scanned copies and making them available to purchase. This article examines their value and discusses their contents.

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The Old Deeds

The old Deeds are, of course, the Deeds prepared by conveyancers to transfer ownership of the property or amend some other aspect of ownership. The Land Registry create a Title Register and Title Plan from the Deeds filed for first registration, and amend the Register (and Plan if necessary) each time there is a subsequent application for registration, removing details as to previous ownerships and mortgages, so that the Register contains only relevant information with regard to the current ownership.

Only the pertinent information is extracted by the Land Registry from these Deeds as they nearly always contain useful but unnecessary information. For example many Deeds contain a recitals clause, which provides details of the purpose for which the Deeds were created. The reasons do not need to be included in the Title Register. Another example would be the voluminous amount of restrictive covenant detail. Where it can be done, the Land Registry will extract only the salient parts of such covenant wording, and will often retain a digital copy of the Deed so that a person wanting to see the entire wording can obtain a copy of it. Whenever the Land Registry do so the relevant clause will be noted to this effect with a short note following the clause, such as "copy made".

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Associated Documents Search

A Associated Documents Search is the search you need to make to obtain copies of the old Deeds. The search will include a copy of all the old Deeds available for a particular Title. The fee is £29.95. This is a one-off fee and will include all available copies for a particular Title, no matter how many there are.

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Types of Old Deeds

The Old Deeds include previous copies of Transfers and Conveyances, Deeds of Gift, Trust Deeds, Deed Plans, Assents, Abstracts of Title, Epitomes of Title, Assignments, Licences, Wayleave Agreements and so forth.

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Documents Not Included with the Search

Leases and Lease Plans are regarded as a major part of Leasehold Property Titles and are provided separately to the Associated Documents Search.

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Why obtain copies of the Old Deeds?

Customers require the Old Deeds for many reasons, including, but not limited to:

• Having a complete set of ownership documents
• To discover why the Title Documents contain some of the clauses they do
• To look at the ownership history of a property
• To frame historical copies of Deeds
• To obtain further information relating to the purpose of Covenants that may adversely affect you
• To ascertain boundary positions more accurately
• To obtain further detail relating to rights of way and rights of access
• To see if there are restrictive covenants that can be removed
• To support an application for a PPI claim.

In future articles we will be examining the contents and uses of individual Deeds.

Old Deeds Search