London Conveyancing Solicitor and the £50 Million property fraud
A London conveyancing lawyer has been accused of being part of an alleged £50 Million mortgage scam. This case marks the most recent in a plethora of this years cases of high profile property and mortgage fraud.
It is estimated that mortgage fraud on its own costs £700 Million per year.
Property, land and other buildings are amongst the most expensive assets people own. Buildings can be sold or mortgaged to get money . This clearly makes them high priority targets for con men.
Identity theft is often initiated by the con man by changing the legal owner's registered addresses at the Land Registry enabling the con man to gain control over the building (up to three addresses may be listed).Even if a fraudulent transfer of a property is noted to be invalid (and this in itself is hard to do) a mortgage registered against the property can still be enforced against the true owner (Barclays v Guy), enabling the secured lender to potentially reclaim the property for unpaid mortgage payments. In some cases it is possible to get compensation from the land registry, but this can be an arduous and drawn out task.
The Cheshire Building Society is now part of Nationwide.There is likely to be a reorganisation of Nationwides conveyancing panals in the wake of this most recent fraud. Earlier this year the Britannia Building Society cut 3700 conveyancing firms off their panel (including Birmingham/London Conveyancing practices) claiming that this was a requirement of their insurers as a result of exposure to mortgage fraud.
Simon Lawrence, 48, has been in the latest high profile fraud case. He has been charged with consipiracy to obtain a money transfer by deception. The crimes of five others were reported to West Midlands police by the Cheshire Building Society in conjunction with Mr Lawrences.
The group, including London conveyancing solicitor and Birmingham conveyancing solicitors and a property developer, have been accused of purchasing six properties and transferring them between a network of companies at inflated prices using fake documents.
The group has stacked up an amazing fifty million pounds of unpaid mortgage advances, obtained through identity theft.
At the time of the alleged crimes, Mr Lawrence was a senior player in a conveyancing solicitors firm which carried out conveyancing in London and conveyancing in Hertfordshire. He is no longer working for the Darlingtons, the London Conveyancers.
In related news, Chelsea Building Society admitted to having lost £41 million through mortgage fraud in August, and is currently negotiating a merger with the Yorkshire Building Society.
Tags: conveyancing, conveyancing lawyers, conveyancing solicitors, fraud, identity fraud, identity theft, mortgage fraud