It has been announced that the Land Registry is to stop displaying the deeds of properties online. This follows concerns being very publicly broadcast on the BBC Radio 4, You And Yours program last week and an investigation by the Land Registry themselves.
There had been cases of people, particularly tenants, visiting the Land Registry website and downloading copies of the deeds and the owners signiture and they were then able to make copies of the signiture on forms sent back to the land registry to change ownership. It’s a shocking thing for anyone who it has happened to but these cases have only come to light when the ‘new owner’ has attempted to take possession for the house. If there were any patient criminals out there then it may be the case that a lot of people remain blissfully unaware that this illegal action has taken place. Presumably it could go unnoticed until the time they decide to sell.
There is another aspect to this too. Just getting hold of the details would be wonderful for any aspiring frauster or phishing artist and I am absolutely astonished that nobody thought about this when they decided to put the documents online. It beggars belief that no-one thought that putting peoples signitures online for the whole world to see was a dangerous and stupid thing to do. We are all told we should be careful with our private information. We are expected to shred everything that contains our private details to prevent it getting into the hands of criminals. Yet… the government, in the shape of the Land Registry displayed signitures to the whole world. Apparently they are going to stop doing that from next monday. Pardon? NEXT MONDAY? Not tomorrow, not today? Why not just pull the plug and take it all offline while they get this sorted. It really is astonishing how incompetent you are required to be to earn a fine salary and a gong at the end of your service. It’s good to know the government and the civil service are looking after us so well.
Thank goodness we have Gordon on the case. Actually, has anybody seen Gordon lately? Somebody has probably photocopied him and they will be taking over as our new prime Minister very soon.
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