House stolen

[Chimley]

I read this story on the BBC and it sounds like a complete nightmare! It looks like he lives elsewhere but obviously a) he did still have stuff in the stolen house which has been removed and b) he no longer owns a house he clearly wants to own, being £131k poorer to boot!

BBC News - Luton man left shocked as his house is ‘stolen’
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-59069662

Years ago DH and I found a shocked and tearful young couple outside the house next door, which they had "rented" from a fraudster who had broken in somehow, changed the locks and advertised on Gumtree. We had the real owner's email address (he lived abroad) so he reported the crime, as did the poor "tenants" who had lost their deposit and a month's rent. We gave them lots of tea and sympathy, but I don't think the fake landlords were ever caught, the mobile number they had given was dead (of course) and the couple didn't have any hard proof of identity.

@RustyBear

Our solicitor advised us to register with Land Registry when we bought - we get regular reports every 6 months plus alerts if anyone is trying to change anything.

www.gov.uk/guidance/property-alert

Very easy to register, I'd advise everyone to do it, particularly if they have a property they don't live in all the time

I've just registered thanks to this post, but why would a property appear more than once?

Interesting that this could go through so easily.

Many years ago the solicitors dealing with the probate sale of my mother’s property gave me (their customer) endless grief over pretty much every stage of the process. All in the name of checking, double-checking, money laundering etc, etc.

They even ignored my instructions at the very end regarding paying a local council debt. (costing us more money in interest)

They grabbed their (inflated) money very quickly without my authorisation too.

Twelve months for a very simple sale to go through!

@GiantKitten

”Once the house was sold to the new owner for £131,000 by the person impersonating Mr Hall, they legally owned it”

This doesn’t apply to stolen cars - why is it different for a house FFS?
(I know somebody who inadvertently bought a stolen car and ended up with no car and no money)

This part of the BBC's report is misleading. The new owner has legal title to the property, but Mr Hall retains beneficial ownership. The new owner's legal title is subject to Mr Hall's rights as beneficial owner. Mr Hall is entitled to sue the new owners for trespass. See Malory Enterprises Ltd v Cheshire Homes (UK) Ltd, a case decided by the Court of Appeal in 2002.

On the information published and based on the decision in the case mentioned above, it looks to me like Mr Hall could get the courts to order compensation from the new owners in respect of the cost of making good the building work and the value of the contents they have removed, and rectification of the registered title (so that the property again belongs to him).

It takes someone passing by and noticing that there's very little activity.

It's possible to pay £3 and find out of there's a mortgage on a property - it doesn't matter if it's yours or not.

Fake ID, an oath sworn in front of a solicitor and Bob's your uncle.

Even the registration for activity on a property allows someone to register 10 properties, none of which may be theirs.

This isn't uncommon for unmortgaged properties. I remember a Law Gazette article years ago when there was a spate of these cases in London. If your property is unmortgaged you need to put a restriction on the title with the land registry. It doesn't cost much. You can also register for alerts about any changes to the register which is free but not as effective (you'll only know when the change has been applied).

The new owner has legal title to the property, but Mr Hall retains beneficial ownership
So his house hasn’t been stolen? He can just have the “new owners” removed and the legal title returned to him? If that’s the case then the article is very misleading.

The 'old' owner has to prove ownership, but for many people, that's the title deed.

The 'new' owner has to track down the false vendor and that's a job and a half.

The false vendor's solicitor has a lot of explaining to do and the 'new' owners need to start with them in the first instance.

Yeah but the article makes it sound like the house belongs to the new people and that’s the end of it, the original owner is left out of pocket. Which is clearly untrue.

@GreenLunchBox I've just registered thanks to this post, but why would a property appear more than once?

If you mean the six-monthly reports, they just tell you whether there has been any activity during the past 6 months.

For us, so far, it just gives the address, the title number and says 'There have been no alert notifications issued on this property.'

The gov.uk website I linked to says "Property fraud is where fraudsters try to “steal” your property, most commonly by pretending to be you and selling or mortgaging your property without your knowledge.

Since September 2009, HM Land Registry has prevented 254 fraudulent applications being registered, representing properties valued in excess of £117m." So it does seem to have some preventative effect.

There is a way of putting a restriction on the property, which prevents conveyancing without a way of checking it's on your behalf.

There's a £40 charge.

@Marelle

The new owner has legal title to the property, but Mr Hall retains beneficial ownership So his house hasn’t been stolen? He can just have the “new owners” removed and the legal title returned to him? If that’s the case then the article is very misleading.

He can, but the new owners will undoubtedly resist so he'll have to go to court to make it happen. He is likely to end up out of pocket, but hopefully by rather less than he thinks he is at the moment. Of course, if he doesn't take legal advice, he may not realise that he should take the new "owners" to court.

He can, but the new owners will undoubtedly resist so he'll have to go to court to make it happen. He is likely to end up out of pocket, but hopefully by rather less than he thinks he is at the moment. Of course, if he doesn't take legal advice, he may not realise that he should take the new "owners" to court.

The You & Yours programme gave the clear impression that some of the parties involved in the transactions might have been negligent - the DVLA, possibly the bank and possibly the solicitors. Would they not also be potentially liable?

Potentially the solicitors could be liable for failing to carry out due diligence but getting money out of them will be the same as getting money out of anyone else. They have insurance and are at the mercy of their insurer's solicitors who will decide how much to pay and when.

OMG! 😱

It just seems so ridiculous that this could even happen! How brazen do you have to be to even attempt something like this??!

@Gingernaut

There is a way of putting a restriction on the property, which prevents conveyancing without a way of checking it's on your behalf.

There's a £40 charge.

What is this route? I'm not sure if this was done when we signed up for alerts and want to check with the solicitor, thanks.

@prh47bridge - thank you for the clarification.

I don’t understand how the new people have the legal title to the house, as everything was done fraudulently, so surely isn’t legal.

"Once the house was sold to the new owner for £131,000 by the person impersonating Mr Hall, they legally owned it”
That can't possibly be true. Legal title can only pass from the legal owner.

@Riverlee

I don’t understand how the new people have the legal title to the house, as everything was done fraudulently, so surely isn’t legal.

It seems to be because the title deed at Land Registry is the one and only legal document proving ownership, and once someone’s name is recorded as the owner on that document, that’s it, they are the legal owner.

I read this article earlier today open-mouthed; it's the stuff of nightmares! I'd be interested to read the follow up story on how Mr Hall gets his house back, and whether the solicitors were prosecuted.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0010nt4

It was on the BBC podcast earlier. The DVLA issued a fraudulent duplicate licence and the criminal used it to pose as the homeowner and open a bank account. The £131k from the house sale went in and out of the new account within a couple of days but for some reason didn’t trigger any anti money laundering procedures at the bank. The podcast suggests the homeowner may get compensation but won’t get his house back.

www.gov.uk/government/collections/hm-land-registry-forms

There is a list of forms to download, some for use by home owners away from home and some for companies.

How could the fraudster know that checks would fail both at DVLA and the bank? Both failures were necessary for the fraud to succeed. Apparently the solicitors didn't carry out full checks either.

The law firm can't have done very good AML/due diligence.. we insist on sight of a passport before anything else and it's very stringently checked in cause it's a fraud

I’m a Scots lawyer, and the law is different, but in that Malory Enterprises case the ‘original’ owner was still occupying the land.

The reason (as I understand it) that it’s not like stealing a car is that the Land Register has a sort of Midas touch, turning dubious titles to gold once they are registered. It’s only if the person buying the house is part of the fraud that their title could be impugned.