The Land Registration Act 2002 prohibits rectification of the register without the consent of a registered proprietor who is in physical possession of the land. However, there are statutory exceptions to this rule, which apply where the proprietor caused or substantially contributed to the mistake by fraud or lack of proper care, or where it would be unjust, for any other reason, not to make the alteration. The issue at stake in Patel v Freddy’s Ltd [2017] EWHC 73 (Ch) will interest everyone in the property industry. Is a buyer’s solicitor required to confirm the identity of the seller and did the buyer’s solicitor’s failure to do so mean that the buyer had contributed to a mistake on the register through lack of proper care? The case concerned the sale of a house owned by an absentee proprietor and sold by a fraudster. The defrauded proprietor claimed that the company that “bought” the property had not taken proper care to identify the seller – and that more should have been done, as a matter of standard conveyancing practice, or that more should have been done than standard practice requires in the light of facts that should have “set alarm bells ringing”. Consequently, or so the defrauded proprietor claimed, the court could rectify the register in his favour without needing to obtain the company’s consent before doing so. The judge disagreed. She accepted that it is the task of sellers’ solicitors to check the identity of their clients, because they are the ones with access to the client and the client’s documents. In the judge’s view, the buyer’s solicitor needs to check that the seller’s solicitor is a solicitor, if s/he does not know the firm, but need not carry out duplicate checks on the seller’s identity, or check what the seller’s solicitors have done. So it had been up to the seller’s solicitor to carry out the “Know Your Client” procedure required by the money-laundering legislation and to ascertain that he was, in fact, the registered proprietor of property. The judge added that the methodology for checking this would depend on the facts. If a client is not already known to his solicitor, he may, for example, be able to link himself to the property via mortgage repayments. Were there any special circumstances that required the company’s solicitor to check the identity of the seller in this case? The judge ruled against the defrauded proprietor on this point too, even though this was a tenanted and unmortgaged property, which was more vulnerable to fraud (and despite the fact that the fraudster had provided what were clearly inaccurate replies on the Seller’s Property Information Form). The judge stated that it was important that conveyancing practice was understood, and that the transaction was considered without the benefit of the hindsight. There had been enough to put the fraudster’s solicitor on his guard. But there was no lack of proper care on the part of the company and/or its solicitors, nor indeed anything that could be said to have caused or to have contributed to the mistake on the register. Consequently, the company was entitled to the special protection afforded to a registered proprietor in possession of property, leaving the defrauded proprietor to pursue an indemnity from Land Registry. Buyers’ solicitors will be delighted by the decision. However, instances of property fraud are increasing and we can expect to hear more on this subject in the future. Allyson Colby is a property law consultant