Don’t forget, if you don’t live at the property you are renting, do an RQ form to help stop rogue tenants selling or mortgaging the property, and also set up a property alert from the Land Registry so they will inform you of any changes being made (that you may not be aware of!).
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Please can you let me know what an RQ form is?
Done some checks and, thank you very much, Graham! Didn’t know anything about this and have just rented to tenants for the first time and used OpenRent Rent Now - no mention of this at any stage that I can recall.
RQ form now submitted and let’s hope all will be well!
Its not for the tenant it is for your protection
its not connected to the letting out process so not really a responsibility of Openrent, more a belt and braces type peace of mind thing. what can happen is that sitting tenants can pretend to be the owner by impersonating you and as all the legla correspondence is sent to the address at the rented property then the landlord will never know anything about the property being sold from under your nose. The RQ form forces the conveyancing solicitor to confirm the identity of the seller (kind of amazing this is not otherwise a requirement!)
Are there any disadvantages to doing a RQ form ?
Thanks, Graham, I appreciate that. Throughout the whole process of buying a property, advertising and renting it out, doing all the research regarding documentation, landlord protocol mortgage and insurance, etc., at no stage had the RQ come up until you mentioned it. Thankfully, you did and I will be putting my own home on Land Registry alert too as there are numerous reasons to do this for any homeowner.
Since nobody else has given the link to the information about the “RQ” form, here it is:
The Land Registry will write to the address which you have given them for service. They will maintain up to 3 addresses for service, per property. If you are a landlord who owns one or more tenanted properties you should have your home or office address registered for service. Your solicitor or conveyancer should have explained this to you when you bought your property/ies. If false seller fraud is attempted and the Land Registry starts to process an application for a Transfer of a property it will send a notice to all the addresses which are registered for service. You can also register an email address. The well-publicised cases where properties have been fraudulently sold without the true owner being aware have all (I believe) been cases where the only address registered for service was the property itself.
Full details are here: Practice guide 55: address for service - GOV.UK
don’t think so, it is very simple, just your address and the address of the rented property, it is free, maybe the only thing is if you move house (your home, not the property you rent out) then you need to remember to update it
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Don’t know if this has been mentioned above but if you don’t want to do a RQ form you can make a “Property Alert” account on the land registry HERE
Property Alert is a free property monitoring service for anyone who feels a registered property could be at risk from fraud.
You can sign up to get email alerts when certain activity occurs on your monitored properties, so you can take action if needed.
(edit)
Just reread the original post and realized it did mention Property Alert. Will leave this here anyway.
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Never heard of this.
And since the title deeds all have the owners name on, I can’t see the point of it.
If anything untoward happens, surely it’s fraud, and any false transactions for sale or mortgaging will be deemed null and void, and your property ownership / financial status will be reinstated.
It’s been going for for some years now. Just Google “property sold without owner’s knowledge”.
People steal your ID and pose as owners or change their name by deed poll to the owner’s. Once the property is sold, you face a legal hassle to get it back. (And the buyer loses their money.)
Land Registry picks up some of these before the sale completes but since they offer this service it is an admission that they won’t get them everytime.
It costs nothing but a few minutes’ time. What’s not to like?
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It is easy for criminals to impersonate you, and then as all the correspondence goes to the rented property, it is possible to sell the property out from under your nose without you ever knowing anything about it. this form is very simple and is a 2-minute job (I was amazed as am also highly sceptical about government form filling). totally up to you but the alternative is an absolute nightmare. there is a reason this form exists…
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Thanks for the heads up.
I will take yours and Grahams’ advice and register my property.
Looks a no-brainer to me. I’ve had the use of the Property Alerts service for years (and get annual summary/update emails) but this looks worthwhile too. Belt and braces.
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I’ve just done mine, and you can do it all on line, but there’s already a similar clause on there for the mortgage company if the property is mortgaged, so unless you own it outright, you should be pretty safe.
But it’s better to be safe that done out of your property, as once it’s sold, illegal or not, according to the Land Registry it’s sold. And there are a lot of people out there who can impersonate you.
Also the alerts are useful as an additional level, but you’ll need more than one email address if you have more than 10 properties
Why do you need more than one E mail address if you have more than 10 properties ?
Because you can only assign 10 properties to an email address
After that you can only add one if you delete one first
Or start with another account which requires another email address
When I looked into it, one of the downsides mentioned was that the solicitor can charge you to provide the information necessary to satisfy the restriction in place on the Title Deed. I reckon they do most of this identity verification as part of your sale anyway, and if you’re known to them it won’t be a problem. I may be wrong…!
As has been mentioned it’s there for a purpose, and I understand that if a solicitor sells it on behalf of someone other than the legal owner, then you have some comeback on them, as they haven’t satisfied themselves that the seller is the true owner.
Without it, you have no comeback.
Many Thanks for update
Also worth completing form COG1 for each property if you have moved home since you purchased properties. The title deed should tell you the registered address of the owner in each case. If its not your current address, get it changed. Doesn’t cost anything and then the Land Registry have the correct address and/or email address for any correspondence. This form in conjunction with form ID2 can be used for properties held in a company and when that address has changed.
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