Conveyancing and coronavirus – #stay alert!
The housing market is back in business (you can read our update here) but you need to stay alert. The Land Registry has highlighted that fraudsters will try to take advantage of the pandemic and property owners need to be aware of the risk. There have been a number of high profile cases in recent years where a fraudster has pretended to be the true owner in order to sell or mortgage property.
High value properties are classed as high risk for fraud. You can take steps to protect yourself such as ensuring that your contact details on the Register are up to date and setting up a Property Alert account. By doing so you will be notified immediately if somebody applies to change your property title. An additional risk is if you own property which is not yet registered. In this case you should consider applying for voluntary first registration. Such an application should still be possible despite the current situation and your lawyer should be able to advise on the procedure.
Fraudsters will try to take advantage of the pandemic to make money and this could include fraudulent attempts at selling or mortgaging property they don’t own.
