Lawyer says property title system inadequate

An Auckland lawyer says home-owners could register their properties in their dogs name following a mortgage scam he blames on changes to land registration laws.

Stewart Germann was not surprised by the frauds, saying they were "just waiting to happen" under a slack land title system.

West Auckland lawyer Don Thomas was fooled last year into acting for a presentable woman in her 30s who turned up at his office with a host of false documents: New Zealand passport, Westpac credit card, ASB bank accounts, IRD taxpayer number and a house title.

Mr Thomas agreed to act for the woman in a $180,000 ASB bank mortgage on a Mt Albert property, purportedly in her name.

ASB bank picked up on the scam after the loan Mr Thomas had acted in was drawn down into various bank accounts.

ASB contacted Mr Thomas to raise concerns and Mr Thomas was then unable to find the woman.

Mr Germann said the Government changed the system in 2002 so properties are only registered on the Land Information database. Previously, properties had two certificates of title, one held by the Land Transfer Office and the other by the home-owner, he said.

"I predicted there would be a number of fraudulent transactions made by not having to produce a second certificate of title which would always be held physically by the registered proprietor of the property or the solicitor or the bank if there was a registered mortgage," he said.

"Technically the system allows a fraudster to transfer anyone's certificate of title to themselves or some third party or even a dog named John Brown."

But Robert Andrell, acting register-general of Linz, said hard copies of certificates of titles had not been issued since 2002 and banks and solicitors searched the register electronically to find who owned properties.

More than 20,000 real estate agents, mortgage brokers and solicitors have been warned by the Real Estate Institute, Mortgage Brokers Association and Auckland District Law Society to beware of the mortgage fraud.

- NZPA