Can you help me find our house deeds?

K.C. writes: I completed my mortgage repayments in 1989 but deliberately left 50p outstanding so my house deeds were still held in safe keeping by the mortgage lender Abbey National under its Deed safe scheme. Recently I had to be in touch with the Land Registry, and when I mentioned the scheme, I was told that the nominal 50p mortgage registered against my home had been removed last February by Santander, which now owns Abbey National. So, I asked Santander for the deeds, but have heard nothing. Can you help?

IT USED to be common practice to leave a tiny amount outstanding on a mortgage. Not only would this mean that property deeds were kept in safe storage, but it also meant that if you ever wanted to borrow more money, this was a lot easier because the bank or building society had an existing charge registered so you did not have to start from scratch. Nowadays though, Land Registry records are held on computer.

Paper title deeds are not needed. But those paper deeds are still your property, and many families would like to have them as a record – perhaps going back many years. According to Santander, the deeds were sent by Abbey National to your solicitor in 2006.

However, this does not make sense, because you have given me a letter you received from Abbey National in 2009, promising that the deeds were still in safe keeping, and the solicitor says he does not have them, and never did.

Santander now accepts that the deeds are lost. It has offered £100 as compensation, which you have accepted.

So much for Deed safe, though.