Landlords warned over rising property title fraud activity
Information gained from FOI request to Land Registry reveals criminals are using increasingly sophisticated methods to steal properties, with rental homes particularly vulnerable.
A leading property industry firm has urged more landlords and home owners to sign up to its free alert service as property title fraud becomes increasingly sophisticated, with criminals impersonating their registered owners to steal properties worth millions of pounds – yet only 3% have signed up to the service.
Olly Thornton-Berry, co-founder and managing director of Thirdfort, warns that rental properties are particularly at risk.
“Fraudsters can impersonate landlords using forged documents, and because the occupants are tenants rather than owners, suspicious activity is less likely to be spotted.”
Correspondence intercepted
And the National Residential Landlords Association adds that the absence of the owners also makes it far easier for criminals to intercept official correspondence or assume false identities from rental addresses.
The Land Registry highlighted a recent case of an attempt by fraudsters to transfer the ownership of a £360,000 bungalow for well below its market value.
When the real owners were given an alert about the change, they visited the property and discovered the locks had been changed and a For Sale board had been erected outside. They immediately informed the Land Registry, which then blocked the application.
In another case, a landlord was alerted after criminals had applied to register a £200,000 mortgage on his rental property, which the Land Registry was then able to put a stop to.
£59m of fraud prevented
Despite the scale of the problem, only 857,000 properties have been registered for HM Land Registry’s free Property Alert Service since 2013, which is just 3% of the 28.6 million households in England and Wales.
In addition, sign-ups have slowed from their peak of 178,186 in 2022 to just over 100,000 per year. Despite that, the service has still prevented more than £59 million worth of fraudulent transactions in the 12 months to March 2025.
The free service allows landlords to monitor up to ten properties and receive immediate email alerts when applications are made to change ownership or secure mortgages. Landlords can sign up at gov.uk/guidance/property-alert.
