However, whether the land was registered or not, the owner had to either show a paper land, a charge certificate or old fashioned title deeds. Fraud was almost unknown as these important documents were well looked after by owners or mortgage lenders.
This changed in 2002 when the government modernised the law. Land had to be registered, and the Land Register became fully electronic and open to anyone to inspect. Any fraudster with a computer could look at anyone else's title deeds, pretend to be the real owner and either remortgage or sell the house. 'Stealing' a house suddenly became possible. Over the past 10 years the Land Registry has paid £58 million in compensation.
The Law Commission has been reviewing this to prevent fraud. Although the main facilitator of the fraud is the open register and lack of hard copy proof of ownership, the Law Commission is not recommending a change to this. Instead it is proposing that a conveyancer should owe a duty of care to the Land Registry with regard to identity checks.
You will all have received dozens of emails a few weeks ago from companies worried about the new data protection laws (GDPR) and the need to keep sensitive personal information private and safe. It seems strange, therefore, that on the one hand the government threatens large fines to companies that do not look after personal data safely but on the other hand a government organisation must actively make such information available to fraudsters.
The Law Commission's proposals would increase identity and money laundering checks by conveyancers, which may well mean the house moving process will be longer and more costly.
This article was first published in the Watford Observer.