oldclaypaws wrote:The system must have changed in the last couple of years, we have a wad of documents including all manor of maps and documents...
Prior to any piece of land or property being registered at Land Registry, proof of your right to sell it would be based on you having not only the most recent deed showing your acquisition, but all of those preceding it which form a chain showing the transfer of the property from some start point to the person from whom you acquired it. Thus the deeds were an important set of documents allowing you to prove your ownership of land/property and without which you would have difficulty being able to sell. Thus the reason mortgage companies would insist on holding the deeds while a mortgage is outstanding or a solicitor would offer to keep your deeds safe on your behalf to reduce the likliehood of them being lost, damaged or stolen.
Many people will still have those old deeds and will offer them up to their solicitor when they begin the process of selling land or property. They make their way to the buyer's solicitor who will then pass them to the buyer when the transfer is completed, in much the same way that these days you are likely to get any building control compliance certificates for any building work such as home extensions. Thus many people end up receiving these old deeds for the property/land they've bought, but they're no longer the evidence they once were of your ownership.
They can be very interesting. The deeds for the house I live in showed the transfer of land from right back when it was all part of the estate of the 'the big house' or 'the manor', and more recently that a bit of our garden was sold to a neighbour.
