Conveyancer fraud warning - is this usual?

housebuyer143

Rachelredwood16 said:

robatwork said:

They aren't asking anything particularly onerous from you - everything they request you try are things I do anyway when buying a property. 

In particular asking the near neighbours. In every house I've bought the neighbours are only too keen to talk about the street/house involved. Obviously don't open with "tell me about your neighbour" but with "Hello - I will be your new neighbour and just wanted to introduce myself". You can then touch on some "conveyancer confusion with who owns the property" with a sad shake of the head.

Your new potential neighbours are just as concerned about you as the other way around so will be only too happy, in my experience, to talk. I've been invited in before now for tea and ginger nuts with this approach. In hindsight it turned out previous tenants were horrible and noisy and they were only too pleased to get someone "normal".

This was also confirmation to me I was "normal" which isn't something you get every day!

So do you just knock on the door and do this?

100%. I knocked on neighbors doors for all the houses I was considering. Tell them you are thinking of buying that house and you want to know about the area etc. 
Go from there. I got invited in to the neighbors of the place I bought for a grand tour 🤣 

Slinky

We did this with our house; after we bought but before we moved in I ended up leaving a key with the neighbours so builders could get in.

I also had the same thing from a man who eventually bought the house 4 doors down who was asking about construction of the properties following on from his survey. He knocked on most doors in the close of 22 properties I later found out!

It's always a wise thing to do, even if you don't have the circumstances you describe with the short ownership issue.  It gives you a chance to find out whether the people next door are people you want to live next door to!

Fionargh

Thanks all,

The warning case did spook me a bit and wasn't anything I was aware of before so I'm very grateful for the responses.

It wasn't raised in the enquiries shared with us, Tiglet but I will ask if this can be done for extra piece of mind. That was really the kind of thing I was expecting as it seems simple enough to do but I felt a bit fobbed off on the issue.

The suggestion of the electoral roll is news to me, RAS, so I will look into that. I don't know if we have information of the previous owners or not.

Regarding the mortgage and deeds; the mortgage has been confirmed approved with my conveyancer. At the start of the conveyancing process there was quite a delay from seller's side doing something with the land registry which was all I was told but I now presume was to do with updating the title which is in the name of the seller now.

I definitely would have felt better if it was just a flip but hopefully the seller is just being honest about things and not committing fraud....

It's good also to have some positive reinforcement to check in with a neighbour. I guess I'll have to swallow down my social anxiety and see if I get a biscuit out of it!

user1977

In case it's not clear - the risk of fraud happening is tiny. The solicitors aren't trying to tell you to be particularly worried about it, it's more that they're spelling out that their remit doesn't include the sort of precautions they've suggested.

Though one other factor to consider - does the vendor have a mortgage? Fraud is more likely where there isn't a mortgage (partly because the lender would be another party who might notice something funny going on, and also because there's not much point going to the risk and hassle of carrying out the fraud if you have to pay most of the money to the bank...)

pennypincher64

Fionargh said:

Hi all I'm a FTB and would appreciate some more knowledgeable opinion on if I am be unnecessarily concerned.

I recently received the property report, contract pack etc from my conveyancer and within all the information found out that the sellers had owned the property for less than 6 months before it was put on the market. The reason given for this when enquiry raised was that the seller wanted to be closer to family.


The following was included as a section of the property report:
"Warning concerning Purrunsing and Dreamvar Case - Fraud

In view of the recent case law we would stress to you that it is imperative for you to ensure you are completely happy that the seller is the beneficial owner of the property and has the right to transfer the title upon completion.

As your conveyancers, we rely on the Sellers legal representative to establish their clients identify and clarification that they have a legal right to sell the property. The problem is they can’t provide unequivocal confirmation because they may not have access to the datasets which would prove a relationship between the client, their ID and the property. In light of this we would suggest, especially where the seller is not living at the property:

• You attend/view the property with the owner and not just the estate agent. This could work towards clarifying whether or not the seller had sufficient knowledge of the layout and services of the property.

• You take time to speak to the owners/ occupiers of neighbouring properties to ascertain if they have any information as to the owners.

• Where the property is tenanted you take time to speak to the current tenants residing at the property and possibly request they confirm the sellers name and address, if they have this. All the above might help reduce the risk to yourself in establishing the identity of the seller and their right to sell the property."

I do not see how any of the bullet points above can confirm someone's identity and felt like the onus was being placed on us as buyers which I felt should be on our conveyancer to confirm.

I raised this with my conveyancer and was basically told not to worry as it's not affecting the mortgage offer and that the sellers solicitors should do their due diligence but that hasn't help to allay my concern.

The property has been empty since viewing and I went to view the property again having not seen it since initial viewing some months ago and did mention to the EA who said not to worry he's confirmed the seller's identity and they lived there a long time and he'd done his checks. Though he himself was visibly surprised when I informed him the short length of time they have owned it. He also said when communicating regarding the property this is generally with the 'aunt'.

So with the backstory hopefully covered, I guess my questions are:
Should I be concerned or am I overthinking this?
Should I request any further action from my solicitor?

Thanks for taking the time to read through.

Personally when I was a FTB, some guy chanced his luck from a bank and came out to survey (but I didn't make a request for him to do so). He was looking £150. I told him he wasn't asked and he would have to resolve this with the bank he works for. That was the end of that. Just be wary and stand your ground. 

robatwork

Rachelredwood16 said:

robatwork said:

They aren't asking anything particularly onerous from you - everything they request you try are things I do anyway when buying a property. 

In particular asking the near neighbours. In every house I've bought the neighbours are only too keen to talk about the street/house involved. Obviously don't open with "tell me about your neighbour" but with "Hello - I will be your new neighbour and just wanted to introduce myself". You can then touch on some "conveyancer confusion with who owns the property" with a sad shake of the head.

Your new potential neighbours are just as concerned about you as the other way around so will be only too happy, in my experience, to talk. I've been invited in before now for tea and ginger nuts with this approach. In hindsight it turned out previous tenants were horrible and noisy and they were only too pleased to get someone "normal".

This was also confirmation to me I was "normal" which isn't something you get every day!

So do you just knock on the door and do this?

I really do.

Most people I have found are just nice.

Some I can't stop talking!