Property owners are being encouraged to register a restriction requiring a solicitor to certify their identity as homeowner before their property can be sold, in the Land Registry’s latest move against property fraud.
From this month, the Registry’s Form LL restriction will be free for absent property owners. The restriction requires a solicitor or conveyancer to certify they are satisfied that the person selling or mortgaging the property is the true owner. The £50 fee for owner-occupiers to register the restriction will remain.
Empty properties, where the owner is abroad or in a care home, are among the most vulnerable to fraud, according to the Registry, which pays compensation to genuine owners in cases where a registered title has been fraudulently transferred. In 2010, 23 of the 71 claims it paid out for fraud and forgery involved properties with an absent owner, accounting for £2m of £7.3m paid in total.
Chief registrar Malcolm Dawson said: ‘We take the issue of fraud very seriously and work closely with other organisations including the Law Society to do all we can to reduce the opportunities for fraud and to identify and take corrective action when it has happened.’ He said that since September 2009 the Registry had prevented frauds in over 100 applications, involving properties valued at more than £47m.
Meanwhile, new monthly Land Registry transaction figures show that during October 2011, the number of completed house sales in England and Wales fell by 6% compared with the same month in 2010. In December 2011, the agency’s top two customers by number of transactions were licensed conveyancers - My Home Move, with 977 transactions and Countrywide Property Lawyers, with 857. Third in the league table is Stockport firm O’Neill Patient, with 418 transactions. In all, the Registry received over 916,000 applications in December 2011.
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