Houses being stolen without the owner knowing?

shireknight

Ok don't know if these stories are just Urban Legends or not but I'm sure I've read stories in the past where people who have paid off their mortgages have found to their horror that a conman has sold their house to new people and done a runner with the money, the new owners turn up to move into their new house find it's already occupied but because they are now the legitimate owners the actual real owners are kicked out penniless into the street.

Is this true?

If it is true then I have a query about the whole situation :-

I'm looking at my house details on the Land Register site and under section A part B (Proprietorship Register) is the following clause

RESTRICTION: No disposition of the registered estate by
the proprietor of the registered estate is to be registered without a
written consent signed by the proprietor for the time being of the
Charge dated 17 September 2012 in favour of Lloyds Bank PLC referred to in the Charges Register.

This to me seems to be saying "no-one can buy this house unless they get written permission from Loyds Bank first"

Well I'm wondering, if my bank can have that clause written into the deeds of my house then can't I have exactly the same clause written in after I've paid the mortgage off so that if some conman sells my house from under me I can stop new owners attempting to oust me in their tracks because they won't have written permission from me agreeing to sell my house to them?

TBagpuss

you can't have a charge over our own house, but you could hypothetically arrange to have someone else such as a family member have a charge for a small amount over the property.

ViolaLass

When we bought a house, our solicitor did a search to check that the person selling it to us was the registered owner. Even if the buyers didn't do this, the registered owner would still be you, not them. They would just have lost lots of money.

Moonface

Land Registry recently set up a free property alert service. You can register your property for this service so that if there is any activity on the title you will be notified by email.

See here: http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/public/property-alert

G_M

Equally there are the 'solicitors' who act for the conman who rent a property. The conman shows buyers round, pretending to be the owner. Sale agreed, conveyancing complete, and buyer's solicitor transfers money to 'seller's' 'solicitor'.

'Seller' and 'solicitor' vanish with the money.

Happygreen

scary thought..is a property automatically registered when a mortgage is paid of or does it involve another visit to a notary or Council with the papers?

browneyedbazzi

There are cons where people try to sell/rent property that doesn't belong to them - it doesn't end with the legitimate owner being turfed out though. It ends with the person who was conned into buying/renting it (and who didn't do their homework properly) being out of pocket.

The family that turns up on moving day saying they've just bought your house when you did not approve the sale are not the legal owners and cannot force you out.

G_M

Happygreen wrote: »

scary thought..is a property automatically registered when a mortgage is paid of or does it involve another visit to a notary or Council with the papers?

When a mortgage is repaid, the mortgage lender informs the Land Registry, and the LR removes the Charge that is noted on the Title.

davidmcn

shireknight wrote: »

Well I'm wondering, if my bank can have that clause written into the deeds of my house then can't I have exactly the same clause written in after I've paid the mortgage off so that if some conman sells my house from under me I can stop new owners attempting to oust me in their tracks because they won't have written permission from me agreeing to sell my house to them?

There's no need, because the default position is that nobody can register a transfer of title of your property without a deed signed by you.

There is still scope for forgery (in the same way that the discharge by the bank could be forged), but registering an additional charge etc isn't really going to provide more protection.

worried_jim

I know of a case a number of years ago where the owner rented their house whilst they sailed round the world.
The tenant, whilst searching the attic came across a chest with some personal documents in it including the property deeds and used them to apply for a passport in the home owners name but containing the tenants photo.
They then promptly put the house on the market, sold it for £400k and disappeared.
The owner returned to find they were no longer the owner, the conveying solicitor wasn't negligent as all the searches where correct, the seller had the deeds and a passport as identification. The new owners where the new owners and didn't budge.

Running_Horse

Such an important case would have been reported by a reliable news source.

Link please, not just "I know of a case".

While this is an interesting discussion point, can anyone give an instance of where it actually happened without the owner being coerced or tricked into signing their house away?