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Theft of property by identity fraud

V

Vinny

pfm Member
I have searched online and cannot find the answer to my question - it will be there somewhere....... Can anyone help?

Can anyone tell me the way to prevent this? There is some kind of action required with Land Registry, I beleive.

For anyone unfamiliar with this, it has been mentioned on R4 several times. If you are not a resident of your property - you rent it or it is empty, and/or have no mortgage, it is surprisingly easy to forge your identity and for the fraudster to sell your property. Legally, you have no rights to get the property back either.

I ask as I have received a seemingly "official", letter, marked private and confidential, addressed to someone who has not lived here for over 30 years, if they ever have - my knowledge only goes back that far. The address is totally correct too.

I have just downloaded the Title Document and I am still the owner on that.
 
Surely the deeds to the property is proof of ownership along with purchase information, e.g. the transaction with the estate agent etc? I have all mine back to the original deeds dating to when the house was built. Houses should come with paperwork like a car or whatever!

PS The land registry monitoring is interesting/useful, thanks, I’ve just set that up for my house.
 
Many thanks @gary1064

@Tony L - the answer is at the same time simple and complicated. In short, it is VERY easy to steal your identity and sell a property that you own if there is no mortgage and/or the property is not your day to day home.
Once someone has assumed your ID.........................
You are a less easy hit as I believe you do not have a driving licence? The usual start to stealing your ID is with the DVLA, but there will, no doubt, be other routes.
 
Just tried the alert service - some kind of software incompatability error!!!!!!

I will try again....................
 
Great thread, thanks. I've signed up, can't say it's a surprise that in 21st century UK this type of fraud is possible and that the Land Registry feel no shame admitting it.
 
Yes this news has been all over the news recently and caused a lot of anxiety

There is a lot of identity theft. I hear crimes discussed on the bus and one was how easy it is to set up bank accounts and fake credit cards .big money spinner
 
I still struggle to see how it is possible. Sure, I can understand some chancer may try, but assuming you have the deeds and purchase transaction details it would be easy to prove to be a criminal scam. In this case it wouldn’t be the house owner who’d be out of pocket, only the mark who got scammed. I can prove within minutes I own my house and that would end any argument, surely? At that point it is just an argument between the scam victim and whatever transaction they entered into with another criminal party. None of it would result in their getting the house.
 
There are no such thing as deeds anymore, and haven't been for an age. It is down to Land registry records.

The WHOLE point is that once someone else exists who is effectively you, they can do ANYTHING that you can, literally ANYTHING.

Believe me - once the property is sold, you have NO RIGHTS - loads of people have suffered this with inherited properties and when they have lived away from home.

Ownership is not what most people imagine.
A friend of mine bought a second-hand tele-handler from a dealer. That had been sold to the dealer by the person who had it on lease. It went to court and my friend owned the tele-handler, he still has it. At the time, my partner was a lawyer high up in the CPS and she told him what would happen - that is NORMAL.
 
Thanks for this. I’ve signed up and passed the info over to my father & brother who own a number of properties.
 
In a previous life I used to take legal and equitable charges over all sorts of property and had to study law to get my professional exams. My knowledge is obviously both historic and pretty limited but a basic principle was that a person cannot pass on a better title to property than they have. So if a third party bought property from a fraudster they were out of luck.
Has this principle changed? Was my training limited on a "need to know basis" if the rules have been changed, why? Could it be to protect the Land Registry and legal professionals from failing in basic diligence?
 
Enfield boy said:
Has this principle changed?
Click to expand...

My partner is no longer my partner, so a legal explanation is beyond me.

My very vague recollection is that the final transaction was done in good faith and that is what counts. In the case of my friend with the tele-handler, in all likelihood, the original owner, the company leasing it, claimed on insurance. In the case of property, who is insured against theft of the property, as well as the contents?

A reasonably full explanation was gone through at least twice on BBC R4 Moneybox, the most recent only 4-8 weeks ago, as a guess. I have had a quick search and can't find it, but it will be there somewhere to listen to. The outcome for the person being interviewed after his home had been sold by a fraudster was some knid of payment, but from who, for what, and how much, I can't remember. He did not, and could not, get his house back. From memory again, the properties were sold considerably under market value to ensure a very swift sale - the agent has much to answer for imo.

The sheer lunacy in at least one case was the DVLA scam - a new licence was issued with a new photograph - the old one had a photo of a white person, the fraudster was black!!!
 
Enfield boy said:
In a previous life I used to take legal and equitable charges over all sorts of property and had to study law to get my professional exams. My knowledge is obviously both historic and pretty limited but a basic principle was that a person cannot pass on a better title to property than they have. So if a third party bought property from a fraudster they were out of luck.
Has this principle changed? Was my training limited on a "need to know basis" if the rules have been changed, why? Could it be to protect the Land Registry and legal professionals from failing in basic diligence?
Click to expand...
It is still the case that you cannot buy a better title than the person selling it.

In the case of property, it is presumed that the Land Registry is the authority on who owns what. The problem is that the Land Registry presume that all solicitors carry out due diligence assiduously. If there is a dispute, an appeal to the Land Registration Tribunal might be needed.
 
Wolfmancatsup said:
I set that up here five or six years ago. They'll inform me if anyone does a search on the property but I *think* that's all. If anything did occur it'd be up to be to try to stop anything dodgy happening. Not sure what steps I'd be able to take though...
Click to expand...

I think it goes a little further than that.
If anyone is looking to vary the title (by pretending to be you) LR contact you at your recorded contact and ask you if you are trying to modify it.
It should prevent any issues, as long as you respond.
One other item to mention, you are allowed to record your interest in up to (6 I think properties), so we have the homes of our immediate family listed on this free service. They are all IT luddites, so if we get the nod, we will let them know.
It is a frightening thought though. Barely believable, but sadly plenty of precedent, particularly if you do not live at the property.
 
Hi,

You need to fill out a form RX1 - and get a restriction applied saying the estate cannot be sold without the conveyancer being absolutely certain it was yours to sell.

I can send you a screen shot of the legalese if you PM me, but I got mine done by a solicitor.

S
 
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