Do you actually need physical deeds of a house nowadays?

amdublin

Are there physical deeds still, or are the details of ownership/sale stored online nowadays?

Geuze

There is a bundle of documents, yes.

Ownership details of most plots of land is registered, and there is an electronic database, yes.

See www.landdirect.ie

However, the bundle of documents contains much more info than what you can see on Land Direct.

amdublin

So do you need the physical deeds? If everything is registered electronically?

Geuze

Yes, owners should keep the documents safely.

Some people suggest putting them in a safe.

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119032298#Comment_119032298

Yes you most certainly do need physical deeds.

amdublin

I went on to that website...

Is there a website/electronic record of who owns a property i.e. if you wanted to sell it, do you need the deeds?

amdublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119032321#Comment_119032321

And I know this was the case in the past. But now with electronic registers, are deeds required to prove ownership...or is ownership recorded somewhere now?

Geuze

Yes, if you want to sell a house, you need the title documents.

If the owner doesn't have the title documents, it is possible to re-constitute them.

A sol would be required for that.

Geuze

The Property Registration Authority (PRA) is the State organisation responsible for the registration of property transactions in Ireland. Our role is to provide a system of registration of title (ownership) to land, which is comprehensive and readily accessible.

The Property Registration Authority (PRA) was established on 4 November 2006 under the provisions of the Registration of Deeds and Title Act 2006.

The Authority is a statutory body whose members are representative of the main users and consumers of property registration services. The PRA replaced the Registrar of Deeds and Titles as the “registering authority” in relation to property registration in Ireland. Liz Pope is the Chief Executive of the Authority.

The main functions of the PRA are to manage and control the Land Registry and the Registry of Deeds and to promote and extend the registration of ownership of land. The PRA also operates the Ground Rents Purchase Scheme under the Landlord and Tenant Acts.

https://www.prai.ie/

Garlinge

Just looking at that landdirect site.... I cant pull up any details but see some houses are green crosshatched and other indicated in red. What is significance? I thought our place was centrally registered and that the deeds are just of historic interest. I wanted to check what is down for us as the house numbers in the estate were changed about 5 yrs after we purchased.

Pomodoro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119032426#Comment_119032426

https://www.prai.ie/download/information/mapping_guidelines/Appendix_9_-_Legend_Symbols_on_Registry_Maps.pdf

Lots of property is not yet on the land registry. In a lot of cases the title documents are in the registry of deeds. https://www.prai.ie/registry-of-deeds-services/

Claw Hammer

Not all titles are registered. universal compulsory registration only started in 2011. It applies to sales after that time. Before that compulsory registration did not apply to all titles. It will take decades before all titles are registered at the current rate of progress. If a title is not registered the owner certainly needs to keep the deeds

old_house

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119032451#Comment_119032451

The 2011 date is correct for Dublin and Cork, but other parts of the country have been using the folio/title system for longer. So, if you buy outside of the two main cities there is a very high probability that you will not receive (or need) physical deeds. In reality only Dublin is lagging behind and even there more than half of all properties are now registered. Your solicitor will tell you where you stand, but the digitally stored and state guaranteed folio is most likely all you will ever need to prove ownership of a property. See here for more detail: https://www.prai.ie/land-registry-services/

Claw Hammer

there were only three counties in the compulsory registration system until 2006, when four more were added. There are unregistered titles all over the country.

old_house

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119035982#Comment_119035982

You are not wrong, but the probability of finding an unregistered property is rather low outside of the capital. And even there it's less than 41%.

"93% of the total land mass of the State and almost 90% of the legal titles in Ireland are now registered in the Land Registry. As the map below illustrates, almost all legal titles in several counties are now registered."

Claw Hammer

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. Most farmland is registered as a result of the property confiscations of the early 20th century. Urban titles are much less likely to be registered. Second hand houses in older urban areas would only be registered if the changed hands in the last 15 years.

bb12

yes deeds are important. it costs a lot of money to replace them if lost...used to be about 5k years ago but probably more now

arctictree

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119050621#Comment_119050621

I dunno about that. Don't you just order them from the land registry? About 25 euro?

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119053524#Comment_119053524

No, that's the cost of ordering a registered folio. Read the thread, not every property is registered.

old_house

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119053524#Comment_119053524

It's kind of confusing. Just to sum it up again:

There are two different systems to record the ownership of property in Ireland. The registry of deeds is the original one, where someone holds a collection of physical paper documents which show records of historical ownership, burdens, sales etc., sometimes going back centuries. That system has been increasingly replaced since the "new" land registry system started operating in 1970. Here you don't have physical documents anymore, since all details are recorded in a digital "folio", the accuracy of which is guaranteed by the state. It has been the mandatory registration system for all changes of ownership in the whole of the country since 2011. You can only be registered in one of the systems, meaning you have either a collection of physical deeds or a digital folio.

By now the vast majority of properties and 93% of the land mass in the state are represented by a folio and do not have physical deeds attached anymore, including all properties that have been build or sold since 2011. Any sale leads to mandatory registration now, so as a buyer you will not be handed the deeds of the property but instead a folio number in the digital land registry. Deeds will be a thing of the past in a few years.

Claw Hammer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119055660#Comment_119055660

If you are buying a previously unregistered property, you will get the deeds and you will have to apply for registration. It will take decades before all titles are registered. Even in the counties which have had compulsory registration for more than 50 years, there are many unregistered titles.

old_house

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119056287#Comment_119056287

Yes, my mistake. You are right in that the purchaser is responsible for starting the registration process within 6 months after closing. I thought it was the vendor, because I once bought a house that had been built in the 1950s and it was already registered, even though it had never changed hands before. Apparently you can voluntarily register property even without sale or maybe they lost the deeds at some point, I don't know.

L1011

Registration began in 1892 for certain things. You'll find properties not sold for decades before compulsory registration on it.