If you bought your property or took out a mortgage on it at any time since 1998 then it will be registered at the Land Registry and you can sign up to the Land Registry’s Property Alert service. If someone then applies to make a change to the registers of Title to your property to show either a change of ownership or to register a mortgage against your property then you will receive an alert message notifying you of the application. Although the Alert Service does not stop the fraudulent application, it will alert you to it in time for you to take action to prevent the fraud. It allows you to receive alerts for up to 10 properties and even better – the service is free!

A more effective way to protect registered land from fraudulent transactions is to register a restriction on the Title to your property which will prevent the Land Registry from registering any sale or mortgage without having first obtained certification from a conveyancer or solicitor that the application has been made by you.  This method automatically requires the Land Registry to check that a solicitor has confirmed in writing that this is a valid transaction being made by the registered owner of the property, ie you!

Both of these methods for preventing a fraudulent sale or mortgage require that your property be registered at the Land Registry.  The sorts of properties which have been identified as being most at risk from fraud are those which are let, or are empty, are without a mortgage or aren’t yet registered at the Land Registry.

Therefore, if your property is still unregistered, you will first need to get it registered to be able to sign up for the alert email service or to register a restriction on the Title preventing unauthorised changes being made. You might not know this, but you don’t need to sell or mortgage your property to get it registered at the Land Registry.  You can make a voluntary registration. 

If you would like to discuss registering a Title or registering for the Property Alert service or to enter a Restriction against the Title, ring us on 01606 74301 and ask to speak with someone in our Property team, who will be happy to assist.

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