24/11/2016 Home for sale fraud and how to protect yourself
A homeowner who only discovered that he had been the victim of identity theft after he saw his £500,000 house for sale on Rightmove has prompted Warwickshire Trading Standards to issue some advice on identity theft and on protecting the deeds to your property.
A recent BBC article describes how criminals stole the victim's mail and forged his signature in order to falsify the documents needed to transfer the deeds to his property in to their name. They then put his house in to a property auction.
People who have paid off their mortgages are more vulnerable to this type of scam because the criminals are able to transfer the house deeds without needing the extra authority of the lender.
The Land Registry has a range of advice on their website on how you can protect yourself from property related fraud. This includes signing up to a Property Alert service. You can get alerts for up to 10 properties and there’s no fee. You do not need to own the property so you can receive alerts on behalf of a family member. You will receive an alert if someone applies to change the register of your property, for example if someone tries to use your property for a mortgage or tries to change the property deeds in to their name.
This won’t automatically block any changes to the register but will alert you when something changes so that you can take action.
Identity Theft Advice
There is a range of advice available from Action Fraud on how to protect yourself and what to do if you think you are a victim of identity theft.
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