Criminals Steal House Thanks To Hacked Email

mask.of.sanity writes with this quote from ZDNet: "An international cybercrime investigation is underway into a sophisticated scam network that used email and fax to sell an Australian man's AU$500,000 property without his knowledge. The man was overseas when the Nigerian-based scammers stole his credentials and amazingly sold two houses through his real estate agent. He rushed home and prevented the sale of his second home from being finalized. Australian Federal Police and overseas law enforcement agencies will investigate the complex scam, which is considered the first of its kind in Australia. It is alleged scammers had stolen the man's email account and personal property documents to sell the houses and funnel cash into Chinese bank accounts. Investigating agencies admit the scammers hoodwinked both the selling agents and the government, and said they had enough information to satisfy regulatory requirements. The police did not rule out if the scammers had links to the man."

Re:This is a non-story.

[AHuxley]

Australia is known to have cleaned up its tax, banking and property sales with complex ID tracking at a points along every transaction.
Thats is what makes this so interesting.
Every small move in Australia is watched over many interconnected databases. Mostly for tax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_point_check [wikipedia.org]

Re:So what's the deal here.

[dark grep]

AFAIK under Australian Law, the people who bought the first house get to keep it. Assuming they are just innocent and genuine buyers. There is a government fund that is used to compensate the victim of the theft in these sort of cases, though the value will be independently assessed and the owner paid on the basis of that assessment, not what the current owners paid the scammers.

Re:This is a non-story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do the new owners lose their money/house?

Australia has Torrens Title [wikipedia.org], so once the new owners are registered they have an indefeasible title to the property (i.e. the fact that it was sold by fraud does not render the assignment void). Whether they (or more likely their agents) own the previous registered proprietor any money depends on the facts of the case.

First time?

[Demena]

Horsehockey, This sort of thing has happened many times before in this country. The problem happens because once it hits the registry the registry cannot legally be altered. So if the buyer acted in good faith it is up to the (accidental) seller to recover the funds from the crook. It doesn't happen often because most people are aware of it.

Re:this is ridiculous

[wvmarle]

Scammers had victim's e-mail address and the trust of agent that they were the person they pretended to be; it's easy enough to send an address/telephone change notice by e-mail that the agent then will consider the current valid details. And when called the scammer answers. Not likely agent will be able to recognise the voice being wrong, especially when the person answering the phone has the correct Australian accent.

Re:Scares the hell out of me

[Anonymous Coward]

Under what system can a fake title, after being identified as a fake, survive?

Torrens title [wikipedia.org]

Does Aus have Title Insurance?

[billstewart]

Here in the US, it's normal for a home buyer to buy title insurance (and for mortgage companies to require it if they're lending money) which insures that the buyer doesn't lose (much) money if the title is bad. There are all sorts of reasons this can happen - deliberate forgery isn't the only one, though it's not unpopular, as are "selling the same house to multiple buyers", etc.

The Wikipedia article on Torrens Title looks like the state provides the title insurance in case they've allowed fraudulent transactions to occur.

forged signature

[cchheezzaall]

The guy was on TV here in Australia. He claimed the authorization signature looked nothing like his , and he said it looked like a 5 year old child wrote it ....

Re:This is a non-story.

[rjch]

Australia is known to have cleaned up its tax, banking and property sales with complex ID tracking at a points along every transaction.
Thats is what makes this so interesting.

Not really. If you'd read the article, you'd have seen the sentence "It is understood the real estate agency did not request a 100-point identity check and was not required to do so." They didn't bypass the 100-point ID check.

Re:This is a non-story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so sure you appreciate what the 100 point check means (or maybe I missed the sarcasm). Various types of ID are given points that's all it means. Nothing more.
A Photoshopped Birth Cert is worth 70 points, and a license, which can be obtained with a photoshopped Birth Cert and a driving test, is worth 40 points. With just this (and maybe a couple of photoshopped utility bills) you can open bank accounts, register company and pretty much anything you like.
There is no 'interconnected databases' at least none you would feel comforted by, and no-one is watching, unless they've been given a huge tip off before the fact. I used to work for the Tax dept and most of it is hit and miss stuff, exactly the type you would expect from a massive govt bureaucracy

Re:this is ridiculous

[ShakaUVM]

Do you own land? I do. I have multiple pieces of land in three states. I have no title to anything. I have document showing the sale from the previous owner to me and a document from a title insurance company. That should be sufficient. There isn't a paper title like a car. It's not like the land moves. The titles are kept by the state. The papers indicating my ownership are kept in my home and not in a safe of any kind. If someone wished, they could get them. But, under US law, this type of fraud would leave the buyers with nothing and I'd still be the undisputed owner. If I wasn't the one to sign that I sold it, it wasn't sold. Period. The rules are evidently different in Australia, though.

I have a copy of the title that the state keeps on file for my house. That's not my point. There's (supposed to be) layers of security in place to prevent exactly this kind of stuff from happening. In particular, if you're selling a property and you can't come in person to sign for it, you need to visit a notary near you who is supposed to verify your identify and notarize the documents. An escrow company is only supposed to close after all forms have been signed and notarized.

That's why I said that some notary and/or the escrow company ought to get into trouble for this. That's the only value they really provide for the rather exorbitant amounts of money they charge.

Title insurance

[Skapare]

I don't know about Australia, but in the USA, there is this concept of title insurance. A "sale" like that in the story is invalid because the title was stolen by fraudulent means. So the title is effectively no good. The title insurance (which is there to protecy the buyer with respect to defects in title) needs to pay out to the buyer for their loss and the owner keeps his home. There are already existing cases in the USA where home sales were voided due to improper or fraudulent title. In one of them, the "sale" was reversed 8 years after it was finalized, all because the seller's title was fraudulently obtained. And this was 30+ years ago, before email. The fact that email was involved should make it easier to void the sale.

Re:So what's the deal here.

[Fnkmaster]

Actually, in the US the unknowing buyers would be compensated by their title insurance company and the seller would get his house back. This is exactly why we have title insurance on real estate transactions.

Re:Some insight into conveyancing:

[BobTheLawyer]

Your firm needs to tighten up its money laundering procedures - that is an insufficient level of client due diligence. If you are not confident your client is who he says he is then you should not act. If something were to go wrong, your firm would face civil proceedings and it (and potentially you personally) could face an LCS investigation or even prosecution.