HMRC Free Property Alert Service
Sign up to HM Land Registry’s free Property Alert service to help protect your property from fraud.
All the information below has been taken from the following website:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/property-alert
How it works
You can:
monitor a property if it’s already registered with HM Land Registry
monitor the property of a relative; you don’t have to own a property to set up an alert
choose up to 10 properties to monitor
You will receive email alerts when there is certain activity on the properties you are monitoring.
They will send you an email alert each time there is significant activity on the property you are monitoring, such as if a new mortgage is taken out against it.
The alert will tell you the type of activity (such as an application to change the register or a notification that an application may be due), who the applicant is and the date and time it has been received.
Not all alert emails will mean fraudulent activity. If you don’t think the alert email is about any suspicious activity, you don’t need to do anything.
Signing up to Property Alert won’t automatically stop fraud from happening. You will need to decide if the activity on the property is potentially fraudulent and act quickly if so. The alert email will tell you who to contact.
Example of someone who has signed up for a Property Alert
Mr Mills rented out his property in England while he lived overseas. He realised that absent landlords are more at risk of property fraud so he signed up to our Property Alert service.
Sometime later he received an alert email informing him that someone had made an application to register a mortgage on his property worth over £300,000. As Mr Mills wasn’t expecting this, he contacted the property fraud line. As a result of Mr Mills alerting us to the fact that the mortgage request was suspicious, it was investigated and prevented the application from being registered once it was realised it was fraudulent. A
As a result of signing up to Property Alert, Mr Mills was able to spot suspicious activity on his property and his prompt action in alerting them meant they were able to stop the fraudulent transaction from being registered.
What is Property fraud?
Property fraud is where fraudsters try to “steal” your property, most commonly by pretending to be you and selling or mortgaging your property without your knowledge.
Since September 2009, HM Land Registry has prevented 254 fraudulent applications being registered, representing properties valued in excess of £117m.
Contact
If you want to know more about Property Alert, get in touch.
Email: [email protected]
Alerts are normally sent by email. If you don’t have an email address, you can still use the service. To discuss this, call the Property Alert team on 0300 006 0478.
For further details and to register, check out the link below:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/property-alert
