London Conveyancing Solicitor and the £50 Million property fraud
A London solicitor has been accused of being part of an alleged fifty million pound mortgage fraud. This case marks the latest in a plethora of high profile mortgage and property fraud cases in the last year.
Mortgage fraud alone is estimated at 700 million Pounds per annum.
Property, land and other buildings are amongst the most expensive assets people own. Property can be sold or mortgaged to raise funds . This clearly makes them high priority targets for fraud.
The fraud process is often initiated by the con man by changing the legal owner’s registered addresses at the Land Registry enabling the fraudster to gain control over the house (3 addresses can be listed).Even if a fraudulent transfer of a property is proven to be illegal (which is by no means certain) a loan 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.
Nationwide recently merged with and took over the Cheshire Building Society.Conveyancing panels for the Nationwide may be pruned an a result of this Fraud. Earlier In the face of the Britannia Building Societie’s recent exposure to mortgage fraud they had to cut 3700 conveyancing firms off their panel (Including London and Birmingham Conveyancing practices) They indicated that this was a requirement from their insurers.
In this latest high profile case, Simon Lawrence, 48, has been charged with conspiracy to obtain a money transfer by deception, after Cheshire Building Society reported him and five others to West Midlands Police.
The group, including London conveyancing solicitor and Birmingham solicitors and a property developer, are accused of buying six properties and distributing them between a web of companies at increased prices using fake documents.
The group has stacked up an amazing £50,000,000 of unpaid mortgage advances, obtained through identity theft.
At the time of the alleged crimes, Mr Lawrence was a senior player in a conveyancers 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 £41,000,000 through mortgage fraud in August, and is currently negotiating a merger with the Yorkshire Building Society.
