It's taken 5 months for the Land Registry to register our title so that the solicitor could finish all the paperwork and get all the old deeds to us.
Trying to decipher all the archaic writing it seems as if this cottage was once owned by an Estate of a nearby village and was sold in about 1909. There are no deeds earlier than that yet we know the cottage is much older.
I'm not sure how many people have owned it since, the paperwork needs sorting into relevant years. I know Mr and Mrs F bought it in 1979 for £14,000.
In among all the papers was a death certificate for one of the joint owners in 1975 who committed suicide by poisoning himself in a car in a lane in the village - aged only 21 - how awful.
Along with all the papers came a cheque and note..............
"I enclose a small cheque in your favour being an overpayment on completion.
Although it is a small amount, I shall be grateful if you would arrange to pay it in to balance our accounts"
(I have edited the following paragraph as apparently what I had written offended rich solicitors everywhere!)
Well Of Course I'm going to pay it in! It may be only £8.14 but that's a couple of meals for us
Back Soon
Sue
P.S.Many thanks for comments yesterday and hello and welcome to new followers
Old, hand written deeds do provide the most fascinating insight to the history. What the Land Registry provides today is clinical and sterile, devoid of anything other than clear cut ownership.
ReplyDeleteDon't spend that cheque all in one go now, will you?
I totally agree about the history angle. However, Land Registry now provides a state backed guarantee against fraud once a property is registered. You sound as if you have the best of both worlds with the documents you now hold.
DeleteHow sad about that former part owner of your property. I would love to see our Deeds, as our house goes back such a long way and there is a big folder of documents associated with it.
ReplyDeleteIf only houses could talk.
ReplyDeleteI expect you'll put your refund to good use, Sue. Meg;)
ReplyDeleteAs Weaver says...if only houses could talk-x-
ReplyDeleteWhen I completed the mortgage in full on our rental property I literally got a number sent to me from the land registry. And a compliment slip saying this is your house!
ReplyDeleteInteresting what one finds when getting a deed or reading thru papers from years past.
ReplyDeleteYour comment made me smile as I work in a Solicitors and you would not believe the amount of unpresented cheques we have to deal with - some for thousands of pounds where people do not pay them in. Often we have difficulty in tracing these people and some that do answer and say they will pay them in still don't!! This leaves us with a big problem and after many years and a fruitless search we have to apply for permission to deal with it and we elect to pass the money over to charity. We donated quite a few thousand over to the local hospice in memory of my colleague this year so I hope all those people that never paid their cheques in to the bank are happy with that outcome.
ReplyDeleteOn the other side of things some of those fortunate people who get left an unexpected legacy can never wait for us to issue a cheque and have often called in the builders or put down the deposit on the car before the cheque has been put in the post and cleared!
Imagine being wealthy enough not to bother paying in a cheque! I know banks are harder to get to now but......
DeleteOur old Wiltshire house had some scratch marks on the outside wall of the fireplace. It looked like 'WI' but then I found someone who had mistakenly investigated our house instead of his, and he told me that the house was built in 1751 by a William Filby and the letters were actually 'WF'. Gave me a thrill to think of the original owner carefully inscribing his initials, back when George II was king.
ReplyDeleteChocolate is a necessary treat from time to time !
ReplyDelete