Property law experts are urging all landlords to check that their properties are correctly registered with the Land Registry to help protect themselves from registration fraud and identity theft.
The conviction of mortgage adviser Feruza Mettrick last week has highlighted the urgency for landlords to take action.
Mettrick was jailed for five years at Leeds Crown Court for trying to defraud lenders of more than £3m by stealing the identities of landlords whose properties she rented.
She then attempted to obtain mortgages for the properties by pretending to be the real owner.
Her frauds netted her over £500,000.
Graham Kinnear, managing director at Landlord Assist, a national tenancy referencing and eviction service, said: “Buy-to-let is one of the most popular forms of investment in the UK but it can also be fraught with danger. The case of Feruza Mettrick is testament to this.
“Properties are the most valuable asset that people own, so not surprisingly are an attractive target for criminals.
“By impersonating the real owner of a property, fraudsters can take out a mortgage against a property they do not own, keep the money for themselves and leave the real owners with a huge debt and having to answer to a mortgage company that thinks they have a charge over the property.
“For their own peace of mind and to safeguard their business, landlords should be vigilant and take every possible measure to prevent identity theft.”
Landlords should have an appropriate correspondence address noted with the Land Registry to ensure that they are notified should anyone attempt to try and interfere with their title to the property.
In addition, owners may include in their title a restriction requiring the Land Registry not to register any change to the title, including change of ownership or mortgage, without their consent.
Over the past five years, the Land Registry has been forced to pay out over £26m in compensation to victims of property fraud.
Landlords are particularly vulnerable to identity theft, because fraudsters know they do not occupy a property themselves.
Landlords are also reminded to be scrupulous about ensuring that they do not have mail to themselves delivered to a rental property, and to ensure that when tenants move out, they have arranged for all mail to be redirected.
Properties most likely to be targeted by fraudsters are those with no outstanding loans or borrowing against them.
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Comments
Think that is bad, my last two agents using my Identity, answered the Deposit Protection Services automated deposit reclaim system as if they were me by using my recorded details (as required to record to enter a tenancy) and stole my deposit. I reckon this is happening all over uk. The legislation was supposed to stop agent acquiring millions of pounds of tenants money without cause. My agent checked me out clean and repaid overpaid rent but kept the deposit.
Can I get anyone to act.....no chance the Trading Standards call it bad practice,
They have property ombudsman logo and oft approval signs in the window but they only apply to sales. How do I know that upon entering that this is an unregulated letting agent as well as a sales agent. Both organisations told me ....nothing we can do about it.....
The Deposit Protection Service are protecting the Agent by refusing to act as complainant in data protection issue, computer misuse, fraud etc to protect their reputation and have refused all correspondence from me having made false entries of their own in my account.
Their CEO in a letter stated that they do not know who has access to their system and the deposits that stand at over 600 million pounds. Yes it's true. He also has not got a forensic system to root out wrong doing in his systems and accounts. Or he could tell me what has been going on.
They are also not registered on the Public Record as Data Controllers......Nor was the agent. What did ICO do.....nothing.
A pity the Information Commissioners won't help.
Mr Grant Shapps.....MP, his dept seem to oversee this deposit legislation says he cant get involved.....
Local Police economic crime unit seems hell bent on insisting on misrepresenting the fraud act in their letters to me. After all the agent used my confidential repayment number within a computer system that he had no right to be operating within. This fraud by misrepresentation.....if I had invaded their computer and taken money I would be arrested...why not them?
When you purchase a property, regardless of what your solicitor says, logon to the land registry and check the titles. It only costs £4 per title, and could save you months of pain.
This is nothing new and such fraud has been going on for years.
I constantly tell landlords to keep their records up to date but they are their own worst enemy at times, i.e. too lazy