Landlord Law Services

Legal help, services and support for private residential landlords

 

Landlord Property Audit Kit – Section 1:1

Burglar and swagIntroduction to Module 1

This first module of the kit covers various essential fundamental issues.  You should always check these items annually.  The first (and perhaps most important) item is:

Protecting your property against fraud

In this first section of the first module I want to talk about perhaps one of the most important things you need to do.  Which is to protect your property against fraud.

If someone wants to fraudulently transfer your property into their name, this will have to be done via the records at the Land Registry.  The Land Registry will then write to you to let you know.  However if the address they write to is the property address – you may never know until it is too late!

See this clip of a talk by solicitor David Smith:

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Barclays Bank v. Guy

This is an example of what can happen.

Mr Guy’s property was wrongly transferred into a fraudster’s name at the Land Registry, and a mortgage was taken out.

When Mr Guy found out about this he tried to get the transactions revoked.  The Court held that Mr Guy could have the property transferred back into his name at the Land Registry.

However, it then said that he could not reverse the mortgage because it had been granted in good faith by the bank on the basis of the Land Registry entries.

So poor Mr Guy was left having to pay back a mortgage to the Bank where he had never received the money.

Don’t let this happen to you!

The Land Registry has a special guide, linked below, where they explain the services that they offer to protect your property.

The most important is the property alert service that David mentions in his talk.  You can now get alerts for up to ten properties – with no fee!  So make sure you do this.

Here are some other points:

  • If you have more than ten properties: You can arrange for a postal redirect for the remaining properties. Although this is less satisfactory so make sure that you choose careful which properties will have alerts registered.
  • If you have moved house: Don’t forget to change the address that Land Registry Alerts will be sent to!
  • If your property does not have a mortgage: It may be more at risk if you are not living there (as your mortgage company will have registered a restriction).  You may want to consider registering your own restriction to stop any sales or mortgages.  Although, note that when you come to sell or remortgage the property yourself, this may cause a delay.

If you do all this, then if a fraudster tries to do anything with your property – you will be notified.

Your Audit Check:

  • Check that the address of the registered proprietor of your properties is your address and not the property address
  • Ensure that all your properties are registered with the Land Registry alert service
  • Don’t forget to notify the Land Registry if you have changed your address
  • If you have more than ten properties, arrange to set up a postal redirect for the properties not covered by a Land Registry Alert.  In this case, do you want to change the properties that are covered by the alert?
  • Consider registering a restriction if your property does not have a mortgage. 
  • Consider also setting up a Google Alert as suggested in the feedback.  
Not a Landlord Law member?  Find out more here.
Click here for the Land Registry Guide

User Feedback:

You can set up a Google alert for the property address. Then if that address appears, for example, on Rightmove, in a news article, or virtually anything, you will get a Google alert and be able to take appropriate action.
Once you have registered your property with the Land Registery they will email you every 6 months to tell you that there has been no activity so look out for them!

Royal Mail, redirection of mail, is less useful as a counter-fraud measure in my view – it can only be done for four years max and only where you ceased to live in the property permanently less than six months ago.

(Note – we have not checked this).
I found this section one of the most important for me. I have never considered this as a potential problem and immediately signed up for the property alert service with the Land Registry.
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