Two major mortgage lenders are passing the responsibility of keeping property deeds back to homeowners, and lawyers have criticised this as dangerous. Loss or damage in storage may delay or make difficult the future sale of the property, solicitors warn.

C&G, part of Lloyds TSB is to return property deeds to one million mortgage customers in England and Wales by the end of the year and Nationwide is to send these documents to all customers who have borrowed money since 1999.

Mortgage lenders no longer need to keep the title deeds for properties in England and Wales as legal ownership now depends only on electronic information held by the Land Registry.

But solicitors say that title deeds contain vital information, such as obligations on property owners to pay certain charges for drainage or boundary maintenance, which is not included in the Land Registry records.

Property owners should keep all vital documents being returned to them including items such as building and planning permissions, guarantees from builders and so on because these will be needed when it comes to selling.

Philip Freedman, a property partner with solicitors Mishcon de Reya, speaking on BBC Radio 4's Money Box programme said, "Solicitors are very keen nowadays to check that any alterations that were carried out were done properly, and if they can't show that they were, they will have to report it."

When householders come to sell they will have to have the deeds and other important information ready. If it is unavailable special insurance may have to be taken out, and that could delay the sale.

The change currently applies only to England and Wales. Registers of Scotland and Land Registers of Northern Ireland will move to electronic registration in the future.