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The Land Registry has paid out about £30m since 2006 in compensation for property fraud. In an endeavour to combat this increasing incidence of fraud the Land Registry has introduced a new form RQ for entering a restriction against a title to help prevent property fraud perpetrated against those property owners who live abroad, or not at the property. The effect of the restriction is to prevent any sale or mortgage of the property without a conveyancer first certifying that the registered owner and the person intending to transfer or mortgage the property are the same.

The intention is that this new form will help reduce property fraud perpetrated against those property owners who are not resident at their registered address, which may instead be empty or tenanted. These properties are often susceptible to property fraud with fraudsters posing as the registered owner and forging signatures on transfers or mortgages.

The Land Registry will not charge a fee for processing Form RQ and are testing the initiative for a six month initial trial period.

Please note that Form RQ is not appropriate for use in respect of commercial property, development land or where a company is the registered proprietor of a residential property. Individual owner occupiers can enter a similar restriction to the Form RQ on their residential property by using Form RX1 for a Land registry fee of £50.

For further information regarding this article or other property matters, please contact Pitmans Real Estate Team.

Sally Sharp
Partner, Real Estate
T: +44 (0) 118 957 0362
E: ssharp@pitmans.com