First time buyers lose house and funds to fraudster law firm

First time buyers Mr and Mrs Noorgat have lost £175,000 to criminals posing as conveyancing solicitors, The Sunday Times reported at the weekend.
 

The couple's conveyancers, based in Harrogate, thought they were dealing with a legitimate practice which appears on the Find a Solicitor site run by the Law Society.

M A Manning and Sons, the fraudsters claiming to be solicitors, are in fact antique dealers based in Deeside, North Wales. Police found that funds that were transferred to the fraudsters were cleared from their account the day after.
 

The SRA and Law Society have been criticised for listing M A Manning and Sons as a legitimate law practice even though their business is not regulated by the SRA.
 

Buyers, Mohamed and Aishah Noorgat now face a long and difficult battle to recover the costs of the home they lost and the funds they paid towards the house. Their lawyer, Holman Fenwick Willan LLP are claiming against the insurance of the couple's conveyancers after they failed to carry out an important Lawyer Checker Search.

With over 50 scam alerts from the SRA this year, a quick Lawyer Checker is becoming more popular when ordering property searches.

If the Lawyer Checker was carried it out, it would have found the following:

1. That the account in question does not have a track record of use in conveyancing;
2. That the firm in question is not a regulated law firm.
3. The bank account is based in Croydon, over 200 miles from the given address;
4. An SRA alert is listed against the fraudulent firm M A Manning & Sons Solicitors; and
5. That no conveyancing transactions have been carried out by M A Manning & Sons.
 

Since the search would have provided the information to warn them of continuing with the money transfer, a claim has now been made against their law firm asking for the funds they lost during the transaction and any legal costs that they will incur.

Chris Harris Managing Director of Lawyer Checker said:

"With over 50 scam alerts from the SRA this year and an increasing number of these claims it is not surprising that firms are being defrauded of clients' money. It was only a matter of time for a litigant to claim that the firm is negligent because they didn't use Lawyer Checker in situations where our service would have stopped a fraud.  Had the law firm used our service they would not have sent the money to this account and the couple would not have lost their money."

At RossLegal LLP we conducts a search against all firms of solicitors who are not known to us at the beginning of a transaction. We will absorb the search fee as part of our Practice Expenses.

Ross Legal LLP
Specialist Commercial Conveyancing Solicitors

Manchester, Salford, Prestwich, Nationally