6 Ways in Which You May Become a Victim of Property Fraud
Mar 10, 2017 Legal Guidance
They say Ignorance is bliss. However unaware of certain prospects may result into heavy monetary losses for you, especially in the case of real estate market. Several scamsters are waiting out there to exploit your ignorance about the system. Before investing your hard earned money in any real estate deal, you must have a thorough understanding of various things on how the market works in order to prevent yourself from frauds.
Let us discuss some of the most common frauds you may face in the property market:
Forgery of documents: A fraudster takes advantage of the sheer naivety of potential customers and presents them with total fake/forged documents of the property. These documents have no legal standing and as a result proves to be of great loss to the customer. Hence, it is advised to have the documents verified from the sub-registrar office before closing any deal.
Frauds in Power Of Attorney: Many times the property you are buying might have been given a general power of attorney (GPA) by the first owner. It is to be noted that GPA is highly fraud prone because the same property might be sold to multiple customers.
Selling of mortgaged property: There have been instances where the seller has sold the property already under mortgage with multiple banks to potential customers and vanished. In such cases, the new owner of the property faces a long legal battle to acquire rights to his/her property from the banks. Hence, it is highly recommended to verify ownership rights of the property from the sub-registrar office.
The illegal expansion of the property: Encroachment has been one of the recurring issues in property frauds. Many cases have been recorded where the seller has illegally expanded his/her house or encroached the neighbour’s property. Later if you purchase such property, you become the owner of the encroached area. Later on, when you realize that you are not the rightful owner of the encroached area, it becomes impossible for you to have your money back from the seller as he must have vanished from the scene by then.
Questionable agreements: It is possible that several of the things mentioned in the seller agreement are dubious and of questionable nature. Several aspects of the property such as amenities being provided, total area, ownership rights may differ in the actual sense than mentioned in the agreement.
Land ownership scam: There have been many cases reported where the land being sold is not actually owned by the seller. Fraudsters pick an undeveloped land in far off places which mainly belongs to the government and then by generating fake ownership documents, sell off the land to naive customers. So before investing your hard earned money you must always ensure that the ownership rights with the seller are true and legally acceptable.
Keep these pointers in mind to be aware of property related frauds and scams.
Let us discuss some of the most common frauds you may face in the property market:
Forgery of documents: A fraudster takes advantage of the sheer naivety of potential customers and presents them with total fake/forged documents of the property. These documents have no legal standing and as a result proves to be of great loss to the customer. Hence, it is advised to have the documents verified from the sub-registrar office before closing any deal.
Frauds in Power Of Attorney: Many times the property you are buying might have been given a general power of attorney (GPA) by the first owner. It is to be noted that GPA is highly fraud prone because the same property might be sold to multiple customers.
Selling of mortgaged property: There have been instances where the seller has sold the property already under mortgage with multiple banks to potential customers and vanished. In such cases, the new owner of the property faces a long legal battle to acquire rights to his/her property from the banks. Hence, it is highly recommended to verify ownership rights of the property from the sub-registrar office.
The illegal expansion of the property: Encroachment has been one of the recurring issues in property frauds. Many cases have been recorded where the seller has illegally expanded his/her house or encroached the neighbour’s property. Later if you purchase such property, you become the owner of the encroached area. Later on, when you realize that you are not the rightful owner of the encroached area, it becomes impossible for you to have your money back from the seller as he must have vanished from the scene by then.
Questionable agreements: It is possible that several of the things mentioned in the seller agreement are dubious and of questionable nature. Several aspects of the property such as amenities being provided, total area, ownership rights may differ in the actual sense than mentioned in the agreement.
Land ownership scam: There have been many cases reported where the land being sold is not actually owned by the seller. Fraudsters pick an undeveloped land in far off places which mainly belongs to the government and then by generating fake ownership documents, sell off the land to naive customers. So before investing your hard earned money you must always ensure that the ownership rights with the seller are true and legally acceptable.
Keep these pointers in mind to be aware of property related frauds and scams.
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