OT: About 15 years ago we lodged our house deeds, and some other documents, with the bank (Barclays). A few months ago I wrote to local branch to ask them for access to recover these documents - no reply. A second letter - no reply. Then wrote to the "area office" address (which was just a box number really), and, no reply. Repeated this with a recorded signed for letter - guess what - no reply. Can someone please suggest what I can do to get a response from this organisation? thx
Not sure if its the best way forward, but normally a letter to the complains department threatening going to the Financial Ombudsman should have the desired effect.
If they don't reply to your letter, or provide a stalemate response then make a complaint to the Ombudsman.
This is Barclays. They may not have the deeds any more.
AKA
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We don't have the deeds to our house, which was previously mortgaged with Barclays; we suspect they destroyed an irreplaceable 18th century document. As we were never their customer we have no comeback.
I agree - 'cos the Ombudsman costs them. But you do need to follow the bank's complaints process first. Just ask the bank - in person or over the phone - where to send your complaint.
I see two seperate things here. 1) lodging documents with the bank for safe keeping, perhaps, title deeds, wills, etc. 2) The bank just happening to get the title deeds as part of the conveyancing.
IMHO with the former the bank as fully liable for the loss, though I bet the small print of the terms of storage will (try to) disclaim almost everything. With the latter, the bank ought to have offered them back if they no longer wanted to store them. However they could argue that the title holder had already said they didn't want them when the bank initially got them, assuming fairly recent transaction.
We have a title deed but it's modern, only goes back to WWII ish. There are a few of the orginal 1000 year leases dating from the early
1600's about but most have been lost. And over the years the orginal lease have been sub-leased and those sub-leases, subbed again and all have changed hands many times, etc etc.
Essentially no one really knows who has real title or even who holds the lease(s) over any given bit of land around here. The Land Registry are well aware of this and tend now to grant "Title Absolute" to the purchaser.
I had that with my branch of Barclays some time ago. Of course not the same need to keep house deeds safe these days, I suppose.
My branch (a large one in central Wandsworth) subsequently closed. And they didn't inform me of being transferred to another branch as happened before.
From my distant memory of banking law, it depends if the bank were a gratui tous bailee (no charge for storage), or a bailee for reward (charging for s torage). If there was no charge for storage then the bank's duty of care is very limited and provided the bank has not been negligent the bank will no t be liable.
Santander had a clearout of its deeds store recently, sending me what seemed to be a miscellaneous collection of documents relating to my house purchase nearly 20 years ago - nothing that I felt obliged to keep but the house is less than 30 years old so would have been registered with the Land Registry when new.
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