You and Yours

Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Magazines & Reviews

Factual: Consumer

BBC Radio 4 LW

You and Yours: When criminals steal my house why can't I have it back?

When criminals steal my house why can't I have it back?

BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours, When criminals steal my house why can't I have it back?

Shari Vahl investigates the extent of house theft in the UK, where properties are sold on without their owners knowledge and looks at their battle to get their houses back.

In an exclusive investigation, we hear how a property theft is occurring in the UK and why home owners, whose houses have been stolen and sold on by criminals are facing a long and uncertain battle to get them back.

You and Yours reveals how listeners, Mike and Angus, discovered how criminal gangs had stolen their identities to gain access to their properties and sell them on to new and unsuspecting owners.

Reporter Shari Vahl digs deep into how the fraud happened. She discovers how Mike's empty home in Luton was broken into before criminals applied for a genuine duplicate driver's licence in his name to sell on the house. 4 weeks before Mike's house in Luton was stolen, Angus's house in Southampton was also stolen.

Angus bought his late Victorian three-bedroom terrace house for £180 thousand back in 2018. Then Angus put it up for rent, because he had found work 100 miles away in Cornwall. He advertised at a well-known Southampton estate agent back the tenant who came forward had assumed a fake identity to steal the house. 

The Land Registry have told us "Fraudulent applications represent a very small proportion of the overall numbers of applications and information requests handled by HM Land Registry each year (63 out of 4,985,000 in 2021/22 or approx. 0.001%), with no evidence to indicate it is increasing."

Samuel Okoronkwo is a barrister and Head of Chamber at Mercantile Barristers with more than thirty years' experience in property law. He explained that the reason why a stolen house can’t be returned to the original owner in the same way as another item might be, is because of the complexities of UK property law. 

“In property conversion there are fixtures and fittings and there are chattels, and then there is the land itself, which is fixed and it’s there, and we treat it differently. So for example, if you have your Ferrari and we agree you’re going to buy it, you give me the money and I give you the car keys then for all intent and purpose there is an agreement and a contract there. If we did that with land it is not recognised unless it is evidenced in writing and when that reaches registration it is completed”  

Calls have now been made in parliament for a government debate on the modernisation of the Land Registry by MP Caroline Noakes. 

“I was very shocked to hear about the case and very alarmed to hear it wasn’t the only case and that this may be more common than we think and I’m very sad to hear that it seems the Land Registry doesn’t seem to have caught up with 21st century Identity theft.” 

Responding in Parliament on the 20th of October, Leader of House Penny Mordaunt pledged to take action, “I know that my right honourable friend has been doing a lot to put a rocket up the land registry. I want to assist her in doing that and I will write to the secretary of state”. 

Presenter: Shari Vahl
Producer: Linda Walker

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

You and Yours

When criminals steal my house why can't I have it back?

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4