Missing deeds

By Dan Roan BBC 2's Working Lunch

Working Lunch viewer Carole South paid off her mortgage with the Cheltenham & Gloucester last year, but the C&G has still not sent her the title deeds for her home.

Carole received a letter at the beginning of January telling her that her deeds would be sent to her branch . This would take eight weeks. Four months later she is still waiting.

Concern

"Despite numerous phone calls the deeds have not turned up and I'm very worried they might have gone missing" says Carole.

Staff at her C&G branch claim that they have not received the deeds and have asked for some time to ring around other branches to see if they might have been sent to the wrong branch by mistake.

"I'm worried the deeds have gone missing" said Carole

Carole is worried that the documents may have fallen into the wrong hands.

She is also concerned that there is now no documentation to prove that she owns the property and that she has paid off the mortgage.

She has spoken to the Land Registry and they say they can do nothing until the Building Society get in touch.

Meanwhile, Carole still feels aggrieved, and wants the Cheltenham and Gloucester to safeguard her rights to her property.

She wants them to sort out the problem or at the very least issue new deeds.

New deeds

We spoke to the Land Registry on Carole's behalf, and they told us that if a Land or Charge certificate (part of the deeds) is lost or destroyed and an application is made to replace it, they will give the property a new title number, so that the lost certificate cannot be used for fraudulent purposes.

A new certificate, with the new title number, is issued, effectively becoming the new title deeds for the property - the old certificate with the superseded number becomes waste paper.

Throughout, the property will remain registered in the name of the property owner.

Good deed

Cheltenham & Gloucester are now organising new deeds for Carole and have given her compensation of £150 for the incovenience.