What Is an Accountable Trust Receipt?
2 April 2026 · Mary Molloy Solicitors
Your title deeds are held by your current lender as part of its security. Before your solicitor can investigate and certify title to the new lender, those deeds must come out — and the instrument that releases them is the accountable trust receipt, or ATR. Unglamorous as it sounds, this step sets the pace of most Irish remortgages.
The mechanics
The ATR is a solicitor's undertaking to the existing lender: release the deeds to me and I will hold them in trust for you, dealing with them only for the purpose stated, and either return them or redeem your mortgage. It lets the title be examined while the old loan remains fully secured — the bridge that makes switching possible at all.
Why it takes as long as it takes
Deeds requests are processed by lenders' centralised securities departments, alongside every other solicitor's requests, on service standards that vary widely between institutions and fluctuate with volumes. For registered titles, the electronic folio softens the wait — much of the investigation can begin from Land Registry records — but the physical packet often contains planning documents and declarations the certification still needs.
The one lever you control
Timing. The ATR request should go out the day you instruct your solicitor — which should be the day you apply to the new lender, not the day the loan offer arrives. Weeks of deeds turnaround absorbed during underwriting cost nothing; the same weeks after loan offer burn your offer's validity period. Early instruction is the single cheapest acceleration available in a remortgage.
Read more in our main guide: Redeeming Your Existing Mortgage · or back to the blog.
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