House "stolen" and sold

p00hsticks

GDB2222 said:

Luton is not the most expensive town, but £131k is very very cheap for a three bedroom house there. You have to wonder why it was quite so cheap?

Presumably it was offered cheaply (at less than market value) in return for a quick 'no questions asked' sale.....

Section62

hilr said:

It is unclear what the level of compensation would be, and it might be difficult to prove the market value at point of fraud.

This is why professionals exist - including the District Valuer Service - to work out what the fair value of property is.

If someone feels the compensation offered by LR is inadequate they can always chance their luck in the courts.

And if anyone feels that having to chance their luck is unfair, isn't that what everybody does when they place their property on the market for a 'conventional' sale?


So on the positive side, someone who is a victim of this kind of fraud won't have had to pay EA and conveyancing fees for the sale of the property. Nor get an up to date EPC, or have sleepless nights wondering if the sale will fall through at the last moment because the buyers realise the fusebox isn't the very latest version.

I wonder if LR would make deductions to account for those savings and other factors when assessing a fair value of compensation?

user1977

hilr said:

user1977 said:

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.

Read the story indeed. "Once the house was sold to the new owner for £131,000 by the person impersonating Mr Hall, they legally owned it."

Yes, but that only happens if they're actually occupying the property. So by definition, that's not going to happen to your home i.e. the place which you occupy - it's a risk for either types of property.

They can sue the solicitors, which can take years and cost an arm and a loeg. They can apply for compensation from the Land Registry.

Given they've got a right to be fully compensated by the Land Registry, why would they sue the solicitors?

The fraudsters may well have sold the property at below market value in order to get a sale quickly and pocket the cash.

It's irrelevant how much they got for it.

It is unclear what the level of compensation would be

You can always read the guidance if you don't know how it works.

it might be difficult to prove the market value at point of fraud.

Why? Historical valuations are a perfectly routine thing for surveyors to do.

The sums are significant - £1.1M in the Mischcon case

The Mischcon case didn't result in the real owner losing anything. That was a buyer who lost their money because the fraud was spotted between completion and registration.

GDB2222

p00hsticks said:

GDB2222 said:

Luton is not the most expensive town, but £131k is very very cheap for a three bedroom house there. You have to wonder why it was quite so cheap?

Presumably it was offered cheaply (at less than market value) in return for a quick 'no questions asked' sale.....

But this was roughly half of market value. That, in itself, ought to raise suspicions. 

Plus, in the current market, a 10-20% discount would attract an lot of buyers.

Just to be quite clear, I am not casting aspersions on the buyers. It’s just all rather odd.

Section62

GDB2222 said:

But this was roughly half of market value. That, in itself, ought to raise suspicions. 

Plus, in the current market, a 10-20% discount would attract an lot of buyers.

Just to be quite clear, I am not casting aspersions on the buyers. It’s just all rather odd.

I guess we don't fully know the story the buyers were told, and what they saw when they looked round the place.

I'm not a criminal, but in a similar position I might do a bit of trashing of the place (e.g. enough to make it unmortgageable) then market it for a cash sale - with a back story that my tenants had trashed the place and absconded leaving me so emotionally traumatised that I can't face getting it renovated and letting it out again. (or something like that)

Keeping a mortgage company out of the sale might be as important as an objective as finding an unmortgaged property in the first place.  A 'cash buyers only' advert could appear totally innocent and save a lot of risks to the fraudster.

otb666

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/property/36-belmont-road/luton/lu1-1ll/13784616/ zoopla estimate 241k-266k

theoretica

GDB2222 said:

p00hsticks said:

GDB2222 said:

Luton is not the most expensive town, but £131k is very very cheap for a three bedroom house there. You have to wonder why it was quite so cheap?

Presumably it was offered cheaply (at less than market value) in return for a quick 'no questions asked' sale.....

But this was roughly half of market value. That, in itself, ought to raise suspicions. 

Plus, in the current market, a 10-20% discount would attract an lot of buyers.

Just to be quite clear, I am not casting aspersions on the buyers. It’s just all rather odd.

I imagine it was not marketed at all - far too much potential for a neighbour to say 'sorry you are leaving us'.  But simply responding to one of the 'we buy houses fast' ads would get a buyer intent on bargaining down to the lowest possible price.

zagubov

This is reminiscent of an earlier horror thread where a poster's parents had spent all their lifetime income on paying for a flat that had, decades earlier, been demolished due to wartime bombing.

robatwork

House Prices in Belmont Road, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU1 (rightmove.co.uk)

jrawle

A man has how been arrested:

https://metro.co.uk/2021/11/06/man-arrested-after-vicar-comes-home-to-find-house-had-been-sold-15554413/