House "stolen" and sold

youth_leader

Thank you @Section62 for the link to the LR alert system. I've been lax with ripping up my personal info for the recycling bin lately, will be more diligent.   I was a cash buyer and have just registered my bungalow.  

london21

The property alert service is great shame many people don’t know about it.
must be a shock for the man, a whole house sold and he wasn’t aware. 

daivid

GDB2222 said:

Section62 said:

The thing which would interest me is how the fraudster got a replacement driving licence with their photo on it.

If it were a replacement of a photo licence then are there not checks to make sure the photos appear to be the same person?

If it were a replacement for a paper licence, then aren't there checks that the photo is of the person named on the licence?


It feels like there is more to this story which - perhaps for good reasons - isn't being told.

I can think of two ways, straight away, and I am not in the fraud business.

The first is simply that the fraudster looked passably like Mr Hall.  I really don’t know how much scrutiny DVLA give to replacement photos, but people do change over time, so DVLA may only question the most blatant substitutions.

 The second is for someone with a genuine licence simply to change their name to the house owner's.

Obviously, neither option is foolproof. Far from it, but as I said I’m not in the business.

It is also possible that the fraudster's conveyancer treated money laundering as a box ticking exercise, and got the photo ID by post but never checked it against the customer. 

It also now begs the question of how long was this fraud in the making? People have been waiting many months for replacement photo card licences due to covid. It will be interesting to see how/if this story pans out, I wonder if the fraudster knew or at least knew of Mr Hall to have the confidence to carry this out? 

Bonniepurple

I’d be interested to know which title the fraudulent ID used.  I wonder if someone saw “The Reverend…” and didn’t pay as much attention to detail as they would to plain “Mr….”, as clergy are pillars of society and therefore trusted more.

I do remember a lecturer years ago who got stopped for speeding by the police.  She showed her driving licence which stated Dr… and the police took no action because they assumed that she was a medical doctor!

NameUnavailable

According to a report on the news this type of fraud happens about 20 times each year!!

hilr

1. it is a personal tragedy for the victim. For most people their home is their single most valuable asset
2. it seems that the law does not protect the victim 
3. apparently the person who loses their house to fraud has to sue the solicitor for negligence
4. this could take years
5. the victim may have lost the roof over their head (say if they have been renting elsewhere and now returning to their home) They may have also lost most of their possessions
6. suing the solicitor may be beyond their means, financial, intellectual or otherwise
7. apparently it is not an isolated case
8. I suggest that this is a systemic failure with multiple causes
9. the stakes are high. Each success will only incentivise the fraudsters further
10. there will be more victims
11. there will be more reports and press coverage
12. trust will be eroded in the housing market and in the Law
13. this could impact investment, whether it is local or foreign
13. email registration with the land registry might help. If the victim's computer/email account has been hacked then it won't
14. between the Law Society, the Land Registry, the Police and the Government they collectively need to get a grip before this spirals out of control
15. the Swiss Cheese theory says that an accident occurs when multiple failures line up to create a large hole
16. I suggest that there needs to be an investigation of all known cases to identify the various factors and causes, and then to identify and implement multiple changes
17. and no I am not suggesting that the investigation takes 10 years to complete and that consultants aka friends of the politicians are paid outrageous sums to manage the process 

Scotbot

NameUnavailable said:

According to a report on the news this type of fraud happens about 20 times each year!!

So given around 1.2 million transactions thats less than 0.002%. Or put another way bu99er all.  Not something to lose sleep over especially if you live in the property

user1977

hilr said:

1. it is a personal tragedy for the victim. For most people their home is their single most valuable asset

Nobody's lost their home. Read the story.

The remainder of your doom-mongering is just a load of nonsense. 20 cases a year is not "spiralling out of control". You're about 40 times more likely to be murdered.

GDB2222

Whose solicitor was negligent, and did they have a duty of care to Mr Hall? 

If the solicitor was given genuine ID, as apparently was done, in what way were they negligent?

And, so on ….

user1977

GDB2222 said:

Whose solicitor was negligent, and did they have a duty of care to Mr Hall? 

If the solicitor was given genuine ID, as apparently was done, in what way were they negligent?

And, so on ….

That doesn't really matter, his claim is going to be against the Land Registry.