In today’s Times, further coverage is given to property fraud. In the article Property fraud: now the Metropolitan Police get in on the act, the Land Registry “[rejects] the suggestion made in the current edition of the Property Law Bulletin that victims of property fraud could be landed with responsibility for mortgages taken out by the fraudster. “If someone is defrauded, our state indemnity for all registered titles means that an innocent victim will be fully compensated for any loss he or she suffers.”” So, that’s OK then?
One wonders what an indemnity payout could equate to, if pursued, in the case of Barclays Bank plc v Guy [2008] EWCA Civ 452 where, following a fraudulent transfer and mortgage, Guy found his £35m property whisked away from him and fully charged to the Bank. One also wonders what the indemnity payout would be if the transferee had been required to produce a land certificate to enable the fraudulent transfer to be registered, as was the law before October 2003? (A: Nil. The non-production of the land certificate would have frustrated the registration. No loss would have been incurred).