In France it's the notary's job ( who are the only ones who can validate a sale) to ensure that the seller is who they say they are, and that they do actually own the land/house/apartment. Wonder how that works across the Channel and whose responsibility it was.
It is the same with a Solicitor but if they followed the correct process and the problem was actually with, say, the DVLA who issued a driving licence in the wrong name, I'm not sure who is liable for the error.
In the UK there is no official single form of ID. The way these things work is that you need a few letters confirming your address, then that's taken as gospel. A few years ago I was a "victim" of identify theft which happened as follows:
Somebody ordered satellite TV to be installed at my house. A few days later they went to a phone shop and walked out with an iPhone in my name, using (I assume) the invoice from the TV service as proof of identity. They then did the same with a few other phone companies. The only way I found out about these was when they sent me bills demanding payment a month or so later :-)
They also opened a bank account in my name, which I found out via a credit search, but the bank would not confirm or deny it as I was not the person who opened it.
This last bit is more interesting as I believe it had a different address, but was in my name. Technically that is not fraud, as in the UK names are freely changeable without needing any official registration. I could go into a bank tomorrow and ask to open an account, saying my name is "Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson" (the Prime Minister's full name) and that would be legal. The bank would probably send me away as I don't have any supporting evidence to prove that's my name, but there's ways around that.
You can easily see how you could use this to have enough evidence to back up the claim that you are the owner of the property - especially if the property was vacant and you broke in so you could get the post (I assume the buyer was shown around before they bought it?).
Plenty of folks haven’t updated, or don’t like dealing with it, or ‘lost it’ or whatever.
Most people doing notary/certification on stuff like this are used to that kind of situation, so someone having an acceptable but not ideal ID method isn’t going to slow this process down.
In Latvia, nowdays you cant visit restaurant without a covid certificate verified by ID card or passport. Or to receive parcel at post office. Or when dealing with bank or gov. Etc.
However I can do the following: use digital identification, that uses multiple factors along with an app, that requires using digital certificate from id card to setup. Afterwards its just my device and that app PIN that is required to impersonate me (well and semi-public national personal identification number)… this applies to almost all gov services with few exceptions like operations with property…
Drivers license has been invalidated years ago as an identification mechanism. Let alone for dealing with property - notary is mandatory along with proper identification.
We are looking at an example of just how bad a mismanaged central database can be. I don't want an ID card that gives someone the ability to delete my entire official existence; either accidentally - or deliberately.
In normal countries with central ID systems, nobody can delete your official existence. Worst case scenario is you're wrongly declared dead, but I don't see how "chaos and anarchy and just use random pieces of paper to prove who you are" avoids this problem.
Your identity is on the chip and cryptographically signed on the card. Even if they delete your records, you can still prove you are who you say you are because it’s on the card. If they lost the records, that’s not your problem.
The Notary in France doesn’t necessarily fully do this job. They have an obligation of means, ie check the last 30 years of ownership and permits, but there are many cracks in that system:
- Double ownership for 30 years followed by a proof of ownership from the real, hidden one;
- Or simply it is the notary’s understanding that there is no record past 12 years for example, and yet there is. If they have checked “the normal books”, their duty is fulfilled.
Is there stories of people getting their property stolen this way?
My guess is that in France, if such a story as the article happended, the buyer would be kicked out of the house (and probably lose their money stolen by the fraudsters) but maybe I'm completely wrong.
I remember to have seen a story in France of someone that had bought a house, but someone else did break in and rented it to a family. The people in the house had a rental contract, so they had the immediate right to stay, even it the contract was invalid. Evicting them was a nightmare.
Unless the house/land is not yet registered, I believe that the land registry is supposed to be the ultimate authority and deeds are just piece of papers. Ai think you can always argue ownership in a curt of law of course.
See this[1] thread on r/legaladviceUK. User pflurklurk is normally very knowledgeable of the UK legal system and probably a solicitor himself (although he claims to be just a random shitposter).
