As you may know, if you have purchased property in the last 15 years it should automatically have been registered with Land Registry by your solicitor. (If you aren't sure it has, it is well worth checking!).
However, you need to safe-guard your registration from being tampered with.
All proprietors registered at the Land Registry have an ‘address for service’ – this is an address that the Land Registry use for official correspondence. They would use this address, for example, if they received an application that needed verification from a registered proprietor.
Examples would be a change of ownership or notification that the property is being sold.
If your address for service is out of date or, even worse, the address of the property that you have rented out, then it is possible that any official correspondence will not be passed on to you.
A tenant with a criminal mind is unlikely to pass on any official looking correspondence from the Land Registry. Such people may use the opportunity to steal your identity AND your property.
You can have up to three addresses registered, one of which can be an address abroad and one can be an email address (although do bear in mind that an address for service is in the public domain, so take care with the email address you use).
If in doubt, go for the ‘belt and braces’ approach.
A few years ago the Land Registry introduced a particular kind of restriction that you can enter against your property title. This restriction requires any application to the Land Registry to be accompanied by a certificate by a conveyancer that the person who has signed a document is in fact the registered proprietor.
Whilst this doesn’t protect against a dishonest lawyer, it is an additional layer of protection which may make all the difference.
Of course criminal tenants are rare - but why take the chance when it is so easy to prevent?
