The Land Registry is the UK Government department
that records Land & Property ownership in England
and Wales. Since 2006 it has been possible to obtain
land certificates online, since then there has been
a dramatic upsurge in criminals taking out mortgages
on property they do not own, leaving the real owners
thousands of pounds in debt. This fraudulent activity
is known as “Property Title Theft” and
has resulted in The Land Registry paying out more
than £26 Million pounds (GBP) since 2006 compensating
victims of recurring property fraud.
In
2010 The Land Registry paid out compensation for frauds
of £4.51 Million pounds (GBP) the second-highest
loss on record, as well as costs of a further £440,000,
according to the department's annual report. There
were 53 cases of the fraud compensated in 2009/10,
down from 62 incidents in 2008/09 when the loss totalled
£4.23 Million pounds (GBP) with costs of £815,000.
Title Theft expert Patrick McCloy, Director of Gatekeeper
Protection, said: "Payouts may rise exponentially
as victims often do not know they have been victims
of fraud until they come to sell their property, which
may be many years later. As such, it is likely that
victims are 'building up' and gradually more and more
are becoming aware of the problem and discovering
they are victims."
The
compensation figures, which relate to all frauds but
much of which are believed to relate to title theft,
have been growing steadily each year. A spokesman
for The Land Registry said: "Fraud has grown
generally in the financial sector in recent years
and there has been a growth in identity theft –
almost two Million people are affected by ID fraud
every year. But we believe the majority of property
frauds are perpetrated before registration: for example
by impersonating the registered proprietor and obtaining
a mortgage, a transaction which Land Registry would
have no involvement with until after the money had
been forwarded by the lender and the fraud had been
successfully completed."
Prior
to 2003, the Registry used watermarked land certificates
to prove a person owned a property. These were abolished
as records went paperless and were available online
to the public in 2006. So these days, all that is
needed to sell or remortgage a property is an identity
and an address: so if the registered owner is one
Joe Bloggs, then anyone with the name Joe Bloggs can
deal with the property.
Fraud experts say it is all too easy for a potential
imposter to adopt a new name, address or even a complete
identity.
Buy-To-Let
properties without a mortgage are most at risk, fraudsters
are targeting Private Rental Sector landlords because
of the ease of obtaining the relevant information.
Dishonest tenants are able to intercept the post intended
for the owner of the property, often containing enough
personal information to allow a fake mortgage application
without the real owner being any wiser.
