Deeds lost from solicitors office

joethegrinder

my family gave a mortage to my neighbour for purchase of farmland back in 1930

Now the deeds can’t be found at the solicitors and the neighbours family won’t produce them as the money

Had not been paid back, they are the unregistered type deeds with covenant attached to them as I was told

No copies at the registry of deeds either. What can I do

divillybit

Was the mortgage registered as a charge on your neighbours Folio? That is such an old charge now it is now statute barred and if it was registered back in the 1930s and if the debt wasn't acknowledged for 12 years they could have applied to get it cancelled from the Folio a long time ago

AndrewJRenko

What does the solicitor advise?

Lenar3556

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058354217/deeds-lost-from-solicitors-office

Probably very little.

Peregrinus

When you say your family "gave a mortgage", do you mean:

(a) your family borrowed money from the neighbour, and granted a mortgage over your family's land to secure the loan; or

(b) your family lent money to the neighbour, and accepted a mortgage over the neighbour's land to secure the loan?

(People often talk about the bank giving them a mortgage when, in fact, they are giving a mortgage to the bank. The bank gives them a loan.)

Claw Hammer

It seems your family gave the title deeds to the neighbour as security for a loan. This is known as an equitable mortgage.
Your family never paid back the loan so the neighbour is entitled to retain the deeds.

Peregrinus

Basically:

• You're not entitled to the deeds back until you pay off the loan (and interest)
• But if you do pay off the loan then the lender won't be able to give you the deeds back; he's lost them.
• Losing the deeds is on him; as long as he is holding them as security, it's his job to keep them safe.

Title to the property is going to have to be reconstituted. This will involve a lot of legal archaeology to establish what is registered about this land, and then a lot of legal procedures to satisfy the land registry that the land does now belong to the OP - basically, tracing and, so far as possible, proving the links in the chain of ownership that connects whoever was last registered in connection with this land to the present owner. A hundred years, or possibly more, since anything at all was registered about this land, this is going to be a troublesome and expensive job. Court proceedings may be required to resolve uncertainties about events that are only hazily remembered, and not documented at all.

So, if everyone is reasonable, the way this gets resolved is this:

• The lender and the owner agree that they will co-operate to do what has to be done to get the title reconstituted and the property registered.
• The lender will allow the costs of doing this against the outstanding amount on the loan — e.g. if it ends up costing €20,000 in fees and expenses to get the title registered, the lender will discount this from the amount that must be paid to clear the loan.
• The lender may have a claim against his solicitor for losing the title deeds but, if so, that's between him and his solicitor.