Peter was kindly invited by the Deutsch-Britische Juristenvereinigung e.V. and the British-German Jurists’ Association to speak at their joint conference in Wiesbaden on 13th to 15th September 2024.
With Dr Maximilian Kübler-Wachendorff (Notary Public and Speaker at the German Notary Institute) and Duncan Grehan of Duncan Grehan & Partners (Dublin), Peter co-presented a session entitled: “How reliable is the land registry? Legal consequences if registry is wrong?”
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“Could you be unwittingly assisting in a fraud?” These were the opening words of the so-called “Green Card”, the Law Society’s warning on mortgage fraud first published in 1991. In those days, there was a significant volume of litigation arising from mortgage frauds, often involving back to back sales. In recent years, reported cases have tended to concern identity fraud, sometimes referred to as “home hijacking”, a form of fraud in which an imposter impersonates the true registered owner or, less frequently, a firm of solicitors.
There is a clear public interest in preserving the integrity of the conveyancing system by protecting purchasers (at least non-business purchasers) from the consequences of fraud. However, in cases of impersonation, Peter analyses the risk as one of counterparty fraud, a risk which can occur in a wide variety of transactions. There is a principled argument for the proposition that insurance against this risk should be available to buyers generally and that they should normally be expected to avail themselves of it (with the consequence being that, if they do not, they will bear the counterparty risk). As with all types of fraud, however, prevention is better than cure.
Peter Dodge 