Property questions: How to combat property fraud

22nd June 2022 | Asha Ngai | Residential Property

Residential property owners open themselves up to property fraud particularly when leaving homes empty in circumstances such as void periods between tenancies; living overseas for part of the year; conducting building works; parents moving to residential homes; and whilst waiting for grant of probate.

Unsurprisingly, properties are also at risk when they are tenanted, and where there are no mortgages registered. Add to this the general rise in identity theft and owner occupiers should be extra vigilant and look for ways to protect themselves and their property.

There are several simple tools available to combat fraud:

1. Address for Service

   Did you know you can add up to three addresses for service on the property register? 

   At least one of these must be a postal address, in the UK or Internationally. The other two addresses can be either a DX address, a UK or overseas postal address or an email address. By having more than one address for service, you limit the chances of any important correspondence from the Land Registry being intercepted.

   How to add additional addresses on to the property register?

   Click on this link to see more www.gov.uk/government/publications/updating-registered-owners-contact-address.  Form reference COG1.

2. Property Alert Service

   A free service offered by Land Registry is the Property Alert Service. You can register up to ten properties. Email alerts will be sent to you when certain activity occurs on your monitored properties. Setting up an account takes as little as 5 minutes and requires a few simple steps:

   • Your name
   • Your contact details
   • Your contact address
   • Setting a password
   • Activating the account with the link sent to your provided email address

   It is very quick and easy to set up alerts and can take as little as five minutes!  All Land Registry requires to create an account is your name, contact address, email address and password.  An email is then sent to you containing a link to activate the account. 

   For further information see https://propertyalert.landregistry.gov.uk/.

3. Restriction 

   You can add a restriction to the title of your property. There is no fee for this service if the restriction is placed at the time of the purchase, otherwise it is an additional £20.00. 

   By adding the restriction, additional responsibilities will be placed on the Solicitor acting on a sale as the title will contain the following clause – “No disposition of the registered estate by the proprietor of the registered estate is to be registered without a certificate signed by a Conveyancer that the Conveyancer is satisfied that the person who executed the document submitted for registration as disponor is the same person as the proprietor.” 

   For helpful information, follow: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restriction-by-owner-not-living-at-property-request-registration-rq. 

   To find our more, click here to speak with Asha Ngai

   To answer more of your property questions, click here for the second article in the series.