Fraud in residential property has been a hot topic over the past year. We are seeing an increase in queries from our clients who want to protect their most valuable asset, whether that is their family home, holiday home or buy to let portfolio.
Most prominently, ‘Our House’ which aired on ITV last year raised the issue in the most dramatic of ways. Thankfully property fraud is rare due to the rigorous safeguards and checks that conveyancers carry out as part of their due diligence, however the criminals specialising in this area are constantly using more sophisticated methods to trick conveyancers into selling houses that they don’t actually own.
With the shift to remote working and rise in internet based firms, the risk to your investments are becoming greater each year.
The most ‘at risk’ properties are considered to be:
- Buy to let
- Vacant property/Land
- Mortgage free properties
- Unregistered properties
But don’t worry there are ways you can best protect your property.
A/ Register it.
If you have owned your property since before 1990, there is a chance that it is unregistered. Registering your property/land helps protect you from fraud, there by making it harder for individuals to register third party interests against your property and safeguards you against the risk of losing or damaging your deeds.
B/ Add a ‘restriction’ to your title.
One of the simplest and effective ways to protect your property is to add a restriction on the title preventing the disposal (sale) of the property without a certificate signed by the conveyancer confirming that the application to change the title was made by you.
C/ Set up an alert for your property via the Land Registry.
HM Land Registry offer a free monitoring service for registered land, available via: www.propertyalert.landregistry.gov.uk
In simple terms, the alert would notify you in the event that a third party tried to register a mortgage on the title or make changes to the title that you would otherwise be unaware of.
I’m Simon Green and I’m an Associate in our Residential Conveyancing Team, if you have any concerns about the security of your property title, Chafes Hague Lambert can assist with the registration of unregistered property as well as adding restrictions to your title to safeguard against fraud.
You can call me on 01625 531676 for more information or either of our other offices if they are more convenient.
