Recently, I read a gripping, fictional story called ‘Our House’. Now you might think that I’m sad, the estate agent reading a book about houses, boring! Well actually, this is a brilliantly written book about a woman who arrives home to find a new family living in her home, with no sign of her husband.
The new family have all the right documents to prove they have in fact, bought the house and are the new legal owners of the property. To cut the long story short (apologies if you would like to read the book- spoiler alert) her husband has behind her back, managed to get in touch with the agent and found a buyer (without listing online as they were in a sought after area). While she is out of the house, her husband moves all the contents on the day of completion and the new buyers move in. You might be thinking, “this all sounds farfetched, I bet it doesn’t really happen”; well that’s where you are wrong.
In this instance, it was her husband who carried out the ultimate betrayal but not only can people as pose sellers of a property which they don’t own they can also sell a property without the knowledge of the other owner (this could be a partner, sibling or even just a co-owner), buyers can also use money taken from criminal activity and purchase a property to ‘clean’ their money. Once their funds are secured into an asset, it makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible for the police to trace.
When you list or sell a property with Milne Moser or use our conveyancing solicitors for the legal transaction, we have strict guidelines to follow when it comes to verifying the identity of all parties.
Let’s use the case of ‘Our House’ and explain what SHOULD have happened.
Firstly, the agent should have checked that they have formal identification for ALL owners of the property. This means seeing the original documents, along with meeting the owners of those documents. The agent would certify to say they had done this.
When an offer was then agreed, and a solicitor was instructed they should have carried out the same procedure. The solicitor would also obtain a copy of the title deeds or land registry documents, on which lists the owners of the property. The first alert to the solicitor would be that the house was owned in joint names and therefore identity and signatures to legal documents would also have been needed by the wife (in the book she is named Fi). In this instance, Mr Lawson (her husband) took her ID in to the solicitors and forged her signatures on all documents. Which is a red flag we look out for. Although making sure we meet a client can be difficult, this is essential so that we ensure we have the permission and legal authority from ALL legal owners of the property.
We completely understand that the logistics of some of these legalities can be a nightmare if you don’t live locally to our offices or work night shifts for example, but this really is to ensure the protection of you as our client and us as a firm. The repercussions of not doing so can result in jail time for the member of staff as well as the partners of our firm so this is not a process to be taken lightly.
I hope this article gives you some insight as to why it is so important for us to correctly identify and meet our clients before carrying out work on their behalf. We have processes in place to make this as easy as possible and if you have any questions about these, you can contact our offices at anytime to discuss.
If you are interested in reading the book, click here. Please note, this is purely a recommendation and we are not affiliated with the book or author in any way.
Photo by Tierra Mallorca on unsplash.com
