Man loses house in lottery scam

read impossible to investigate as possible to investigate but costly......

"PeterSaxton" wrote

There was a similar issue raised on a radio show the other night. IIRC and put simply, scammers were targeting houses without a mortgage. They contact the land registry assuming the identity of the house owner and get the "service address" altered to some empty property. They can then raise loans on the property, as any search enquiries reply to the bogus address without the owner's knowledge. The owner is made aware, when attempts are made to recover unpaid installments on the loan. In extreme cases, some owners have had their property sold out from under them (particularly holiday home owners not in residence permanently).

Phil

We would know nothing about this scam.........unless advertised on the telly, in the papers and on the internet......but ofcourse the scammers who would also not know this method are also watching....chicken/egg comes to mind.

"Tom E" wrote

So, which approach is correct? Don't mention these things as it spreads the idea near and far, or publicise them so public are aware and take measures to protect themselves. The inference from the land registry scam was that it paid to retain some level of mortgage on a propery. Also they highlighted the fact that there was no back-checking at the land registry to ensure that any request was genuine. One example given was that a house was actually going to transfer ownership for 1, but the only reason the deal was questioned was because a name cropped up somewhere that was on a police alert list.

Phil

It's only costly because the police are inefficient.

I do find it amazing that anyone can download the deeds of any house including the information about whether it is mortgaged (and who to) and what the owners paid for it, as well as their names of course.

is it the same in other countries I wonder?

Robert

So how exactly does this become the house-owner's problem? Isn't the loss with the lender, who has not made sure of the validity of borrower's credentials?