Title

Halifax has pulled out of the title deed storage business, so a few days ago around 4lbs 11oz of title deeds arrived at our front door. 35 by 25 by 5 centimetres, something more than 4,000 cubic centimetres. So a million such parcels - supposing that to be how many Halifax were holding - would occupy 4,000 cubic metres - 10 by 10 by 40 metres - amounting to a fair sized shed - and weigh in at something more than 2,000 metric tonnes, with a metric tonne not being much different to one of our tons.

The job of looking after all this stuff appeared to have been contracted out to Iron Mountain, people whom I knew of from my spell in in records management. See reference 1.

Contents

I think I had been expecting a single ancient document, tied up in red ribbon, decorated with various seals and signatures. And there was some of that in among the great old bundle of stuff, stuff which perhaps in aggregate traces back our title to our house into the mists of time. The earliest date I came across was 1783 and I also came across two Mr. Chases, the estate we live in being known as the Chase Estate. So I now suppose that they once owned the land. Speculators of old?

Organised into three bundles. In ascending order of size: our title to the house (front), the people from whom we bought the house (back) and, in the middle, a fat miscellany of papers about the people before them.

One wonders how much one would have to pay a solicitor's clerk to wade through all this stuff and produce an intelligible summary. Would the answer be to scan it all in - which would cost a bit in itself - and then hand the job over to AI? Who in the meantime has learned how to read ancient legal manuscript. Then the last lap couldn't be that much worse than Acrobat knocking out helpful summaries of long documents to save one the bother of reading them.

Some details

In no particular order.

The most recent document was an imposing affair, tied up with white string and stamped with a large red seal, called a Charge Certificate from the Land Registry, dating from the time of our arrival in 1988. This contained a few fairly straightforward entries in the Land Registry - plus an imposing conveyance from 1931, tied up with green ribbon, written out in black italic manuscript, complete with ornamentation which would not have disgraced something that you might have found in a monastery library of old.

Another green ribboned conveyance from 1946. In among which I find a clause which restrains us from digging gravel, chalk and so on from the back garden and from the making of bricks. Who could enforce such restraint now?

Various papers related to the Eagle Star Insurance Company from the early 1980s.

A declaration about something or other from a former next door neighbour. Typescript with lots of initialled, manuscript corrections.

A fat bundle of paper from 1935, tied together with an imposing brass paper fastener, called (in fancy italic) an abstract of title. This appears to be a typed history of the ownership of the property, starting in 1783 and possibly conveying the land to the Chase brothers in 1905.

A conveyance of 1935 which appears to be from the builder, a Mr Uden, to the occupier, a doctor at the West Park Asylum, now a housing estate, for a consideration of just over £1,000. At that time our house was called 'Lissadell', a name I do not think I have come across before. But Wikipedia is ahead of me at reference 2. An Irish doctor perhaps? The Atlas Assurance Company was involved in this transaction - and Wikipedia only manages a very short entry for them.

Various searches. These mostly seemed to be solicitors asking the local authority what it knew about the property. But one, from 1935, involved the Land Registry.

A 1935 or 1946 supplemental to the abstract of title. Another brass paper fastener, not quite so imposing as the last. A document in neat but modern manuscript. No attempt at fancy italic. What appears to be another copy of the abstract of title, with the same two dates.

The last bundle of papers appears to concern the people from whom we bought the house. Starting with a rental agreement from the 1960s between them and the then owner. Fifteen guineas a week. The last fat document was another abstract of title, this one dating from 1960, at about which time the then owner appears to have died in occupation.

I am reminded that processing all this paper was how solicitors made their money in the olden days. Their golden goose, as it were.

Destination

My understanding is that title deeds of this sort have now been rendered obsolete by the Land Registry, notwithstanding which Halifax tell me that they are important and should be kept in a safe place. So I have tied them up with laces left over from retired trainers and shall find a suitable hiding place for them - leaving skipping them to our heirs.

References

Reference 1: https://www.ironmountain.com/en-gb.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissadell_House.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Assurance_Company.

Reference 4: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/a-good-result.html. The last outing from my trusty brand of trainers. Which I believe are made in Vietnam.