Inside terrifying scam which sees criminals STEAL your home and lock you out while they flog it on market
WHAT would you do if you arrived home from work to find a stranger on your doorstep instructing removal men on where to put the furniture in "their" new house?
It’s every homeowner’s worst nightmare and one which is being played out in ITV’s new divorce drama Our House.
The four-part psychological thriller sees Tuppence Middleton play mum-of-two Fi Lawson, who discovers her house has been mysteriously sold without her knowledge.
The show is based on a 2019 Sunday Times bestselling novel of the same name by Louise Candlish - and while it's a work of fiction, the story was inspired by a chilling real life property fraud case in 2015.
It saw a couple's south west London home rented to a bogus tenant and then sold on his instructions using forged documents, with an accomplice posing as the owner who had changed her name to the owner's by deed poll.
While it may sound far-fetched, it's a sophisticated criminal scam that's on the rise in the UK.
Louise previously told Criminal Element: “Properties have become overvalued, and people have become these accidental millionaires living in fairly average houses.
“At the same time, a whole terrible industry of property fraud has grown up. I really wanted to write about a crime that I hadn’t read about before in fiction.”
Colum Smith, a property fraud expert with RCP Innovation, tells The Sun: “Our House shines light on a growing problem because property fraud is a reality impacting rising numbers of people every year."
Property fraud - caused by criminals who dupe solicitors, estate agents and the Land Registry - is a growing issue in Britain.
So-called property title fraud sees scammers obtain the title of a home, usually via identity theft, and change ownership to their name, enabling them to take out loans secured against the property or even sell it.
Last year the Land Registry revealed it paid out £3.5million in compensation for fraud and inaccuracies within its register between July 2019 and July 2020.
But Colum insists government estimates for the money these criminals steal are "nowhere near the true scale of the losses we are seeing in the industry".
“It’s many, many millions of pounds more which fraudsters are stealing," he says.
They later discovered that Penny still owned the property, after the Land Registry had become suspicious and declined to register the sale.
But the young woman who had handed over a cheque for the house in good faith had been conned, with the vast sum on its way to a bank in Dubai.
“The pandemic, which has seen more services shift online, has created a new world of opportunities for criminals," he explains.
“Homeowners need to be on their guard now more than ever before. If something looks odd, challenge it. Fraudsters rely upon inaction, trust and naivety.”
How to avoid scammers
Jonathan Rolande, from recommends reducing the risk when buying or selling a property by always using professionals and meeting people where possible in person.
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They said: "When a property owner signs up for property alert, email alerts are sent when official searches and applications are received against a monitored property.
"Official searches are completed ahead of most property sales when the buyer or lender’s conveyancer searches the Land Register for information relating to that property."