It seems almost unbelievable, how can you possibly lose your home or other property, after all it is “bricks and mortar”, you have evidence that you purchased the property, so how could someone get away with taking your property from you?
The reality is you really can lose your property to a fraudster, a recent article published by Credit Check Services highlights how this can happen based on an actual case, this is not theory, it is fact. You can read more about it here, losing a property due to identity fraud.
In brief this is how it happened:
The property belonged to a buy to let investor and was empty for a few months between tenants.
During the void period someone gained access to the property and then advertised it for sale. As they had access to the property they were able to access any post such as water rates bills to help verify their ownership.
The fraudster is alleged to have had a passport copy made of the true owner, this plus access to the post gave them all they needed to demonstrate to a solicitor they were the owner.
Land Registry accepted the ownership and passed the title to the new purchaser.
The original owner attempted to challenge the ownership on the basis that they did not sell the property to the new owner, Land Registry however were unable to revert ownership back as the new owner was now in possession (e.g. occupancy or let to tenants) of the property.
The upshot is that identity fraud can really cost you your home. We recommend reading more on the Credit Check Services website (link above) to see what you can do to prevent the loss of your property.
