The Law Society, in collaboration with the Land Registry, has issued a practice note on Property and Registration Fraud. This practice note sits alongside the current Law Society practice note on Mortgage Fraud, both of which are essential reading for all property lawyers. Perhaps with prescience (or just advance knowledge) the Property and Registration Fraud practice notes says, at paragraph 2.1.1: “There have been instances where fraudulent applications have been made to Land Registry by fraudsters impersonating legitimate firms of solicitors by using forged headed paper, faxes and emails.” Paragraph 2.1.2 says “Web sites have been fraudulently set up purporting to be sites of solicitors and/or new sub-offices of legitimate firms in order to perpetrate fraud.” Take a look at the case of Lloyds TSB Bank plc v Markandan & Uddin (A Firm) [2010] EWHC 2517 (Ch) in which a firm of solicitors acting for a buyer were hoodwinked by bogus sellers’ solicitors into parting with mortgage-backed purchase funds and were held liable in breach of trust to account to the mortgage lender for mortgage money advanced to complete a transaction that simply did not complete.
Property PSL