Landlords can easily avoid mortgage scams by crooked tenants claiming to own they homes they rent, claims a letting agents’ group.Property investors are among the victims of mortgage frauds that have cost the Land registry around £26 million in pay outs since 2006.

Liz Richards, head of Legal and Policy at the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), says that the false applications could easily have been circumvented if landlords had simply set up a second address for official mail.

“ARLA members are advising all landlords to contact the Land Registry to ask that any formal notices to them be sent to an alternative address. This prevents tenants who are criminals intercepting this important correspondence,” said Richards.

Landlords left in debt

“This may seem a little extreme, but in our experience it goes some way towards deterring the misuse of such records.

“Information that is now available on the internet makes it a lot easier for criminals to take out mortgages on properties they do not own, pocketing the money and leaving the legitimate owner in debt – with the stress and aggravation of retrieving title of their own property.

“From the experience of our agents, we have noticed the trend as flagged by the Land Registry and the punitive effect it is having on landlords particularly because by the time of discovery, the damage is already done.

Mortgage fraud is easier

“In practice as soon as the ‘tenant’ has got the mortgage funds they disappear. That is when the landlord becomes aware of the problem, when the rent fails to come in and the tenant has vanished.

Then it is only a matter of time before the debt collectors for the new mortgage come calling.”

Mortgage fraud is easier since land certificates went paperless in 2006 and are available tfor anyone to view online.

A landlord with a buy to let mortgage or where they have given notice of more than one address – their home address and their let property address – on the Land Registry records would have circumvented the crook’s plan as they would have seen letters about the con.