The Old Charge on Your Folio for a Loan You Repaid Years Ago
26 February 2026 · Mary Molloy Solicitors
You cleared that credit union top-up or old bank loan a decade ago — but the folio still shows the charge, because repaying a loan and registering its release are two different events, and the second one was nobody's job. These ghost charges are harmless right up until you remortgage, when they become the item blocking your certificate of title.
Why the new lender cares about a dead charge
The new lender requires a first legal charge. A registered prior charge — however historic, however repaid — ranks ahead of it on paper, so it must be released or formally accounted for before the certificate of title can issue. The register is what counts, not the reality everyone remembers.
The easy version and the hard version
Where the chargeholder still exists, the fix is administrative: evidence of repayment, a request to its securities unit, and an eDischarge or deed of release lodged for registration. Where the lender has merged, exited Ireland, or sold its book, the entity now entitled to release must be traced through the corporate and loan-sale history — solvable, and there are well-worn paths for the institutions that left, but measured in weeks or months rather than days. This is the title issue that most rewards being started on day one.
The lesson for this remortgage
When your current switch completes, the discharge of the mortgage you are redeeming will be registered as part of the transaction — that is standard. But take the wider lesson: any time you clear secured borrowing, confirm the release is actually registered on the folio. A clean folio is an asset you hand your future self, or your executors.
Read more in our main guide: Title Issues That Delay Remortgages · or back to the blog.
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