The Fraudster who Stole a House in Surrey. Property Fraud is more common that you may think.
- Holly Hamer
- Oct 2
- 2 min read
A homeowner, Angela, went away for three weeks to visit her mother in Wales. Upon returning, she discovered that she was no longer the legal owner of her home. A fraudster had impersonated her, contacted the Land Registry, and had the ownership transferred into their own name. This highly sophisticated criminal has intercepted Angela's letterbox and stolen her identity.
The Land Registry had sent paperwork advising of the change of ownership, however, the criminal had blocked her original letterbox and fixed a new fake one on top. Angela therefore never saw the post. When Angela suspected foul-play she reported it to the police, however, they took no action.
What followed was a four-month legal and emotional ordeal for Angela to reclaim her house. The Land Registry treated it more like a civil dispute than a criminal fraud, requiring the current (fraudulent) registered proprietor to “agree” to revert things back. Fortunately, the fraudster didn’t contest the reversal, but the case exposed serious vulnerabilities in the system.
Unfortunately Angela's case is not uncommon, in fact in 2017 there were £24.9m worth of misappropriated property. In more recent years this has trebled due to criminals being able to use more advance technology. Property Title fraud is particularly prominent during the transfer of funds, as hackers are able to hack into the system and funnel the funds into their own bank account.
So what can you do to prevent property title fraud from happening?
In 2013, HM Land Registry launched a free to use Property Alerts system which allows proprietors to upload up-to 10 properties onto their system and if there happens to be any suspicious activity on one of your registered properties, you will get an email notification, allowing you to act swiftly.
With technology becoming more and more advanced, it's absolutely crucial that you do look at ways you can protect your most expensive assets. As we can see from Angela's case, it was terribly difficult for Angela to win her home back, and was at first, essentially advised by the Land Registry to ask for the criminals permission to transfer ownership back to her. This whole process would have been incredibly stressful, emotional, time-consuming and costly.
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