Companies mimicking HM Land Registry.

Somersetleveller

A week ago I Googled 'Land Registry' to get hold of a copy of the Title for a property I own.

The Company calls itself Land Registry UK and, having missed the small print stating they are not HM Land Registry (HMLR), I paid online about 60 pounds for a copy of the Title. 

Soon after, this Company emailed to state that there were no documents available and that my account would be refunded in 4-10 days).

The strange thing is the neither the charge nor the reimbursement appears on my bank statement.

Possibly this is a legitimate Co. piggybacking on Land Registry data to make money but am concerned it is a scam outfit. Their web site [www.landregistryuk.co.uk] looks professional but there is no Director name, or number and it is not listed by Companies House.

It turns out that the Title is not registered digitally by HMLR (property purchased before 1990s) so should I be concerned that this 'pseudo' Land Registry Company could try to steal my Title?  ... since they now know the address etc.

DullGreyGuy

Somersetleveller said:

A week ago I Googled 'Land Registry' to get hold of a copy of the Title for a property I own.

The Company calls itself Land Registry UK and, having missed the small print stating they are not HM Land Registry (HMLR), I paid online about 60 pounds for a copy of the Title. 

Soon after, this Company emailed to state that there were no documents available and that my account would be refunded in 4-10 days).

The strange thing is the neither the charge nor the reimbursement appears on my bank statement.

Possibly this is a legitimate Co. piggybacking on Land Registry data to make money but am concerned it is a scam outfit. Their web site [www.landregistryuk.co.uk] looks professional but there is no Director name, or number and it is not listed by Companies House.

It turns out that the Title is not registered digitally by HMLR (property purchased before 1990s) so should I be concerned that this 'pseudo' Land Registry Company could try to steal my Title?  ... since they now know the address etc.

If you read their T&Cs they claim to be a company operating out of the UAE and so wouldn't be listed at Companies House. 

Most of these are not technically a scam but simply very poor value as all they're doing is adding a big margin for filling the same information into the relevant governmental portal on your behalf. There have historically been lots of threads on similar companies covering land registry, passport applications, car tax, ESTAs and everything in-between. Dont recall any issues being claimed beyond the fact that people paid way above the official fees for the service. 

Jude57

For anyone seeking official government websites, any government (including local government) portal in England has the suffix .gov.uk and official government agencies such as HM Land Registry have the suffix .org.uk

Section62

Jude57 said:

For anyone seeking official government websites, any government (including local government) portal in England has the suffix .gov.uk and official government agencies such as HM Land Registry have the suffix .org.uk

...and searching from the gov.uk website (rather than google etc) is the best way of finding official government information and services.

user1977

Somersetleveller said:

Possibly this is a legitimate Co. piggybacking on Land Registry data to make money but am concerned it is a scam outfit. Their web site [www.landregistryuk.co.uk] looks professional but there is no Director name, or number and it is not listed by Companies House.

Given their terms state

"We are 8Forty AE (trading as Land Registry UK) a company registered in UAE"

I wouldn't expect them to be found on Companies House.

I'm not aware of any of such outlets actually being a "scam", insofar as they do actually provide the services requested.

No idea how they would "steal" your title anyway!

user1977

Jude57 said:

and official government agencies such as HM Land Registry have the suffix .org.uk

They are also .gov.uk.

.org.uk just indicates non-profitmaking entities (generally, not governmental ones) and shouldn't be treated as verification that the site is genuine.

GDB2222

Somersetleveller said:

A week ago I Googled 'Land Registry' to get hold of a copy of the Title for a property I own.

The Company calls itself Land Registry UK and, having missed the small print stating they are not HM Land Registry (HMLR), I paid online about 60 pounds for a copy of the Title. 

Soon after, this Company emailed to state that there were no documents available and that my account would be refunded in 4-10 days).

The strange thing is the neither the charge nor the reimbursement appears on my bank statement.

Possibly this is a legitimate Co. piggybacking on Land Registry data to make money but am concerned it is a scam outfit. Their web site [www.landregistryuk.co.uk] looks professional but there is no Director name, or number and it is not listed by Companies House.

It turns out that the Title is not registered digitally by HMLR (property purchased before 1990s) so should I be concerned that this 'pseudo' Land Registry Company could try to steal my Title?  ... since they now know the address etc.

It’s pretty tough to sell a property without having access to it. Putting a charge on it would possibly be a little easier. As it is not on the LR, fraudsters would have to start by drawing up some fake deeds. I can imagine that there are easier frauds around. 

They have your bank account details, but I don’t know how many other people have those, too? 

newsgroupmonkey_

Jude57 said:

For anyone seeking official government websites, any government (including local government) portal in England has the suffix .gov.uk and official government agencies such as HM Land Registry have the suffix .org.uk

They're .gov.uk
https://eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/eservices/HomePageRouter

A .org.uk should be a non-profit, but they don't enforce it at all.