CrimeaPRESS reports:
Almost every day there is news about how scammers appropriate someone else’s property. They filigree deceive, forge documents, use illegally obtained digital signatures, slip sellers a donation agreement instead of a sale. They pretend to be other people, including the real owners of apartments or employees of the authorities. The toolkit of criminals evolves and grows, but many schemes are based on «eternal values» — a simple written form of a transaction that implies both the ease of use of forged documents and the gullibility of people.
One recent example is a gang of black realtors who sold the property of a missing Muscovite. The attackers were detained thanks to a notary who, when certifying the transaction, revealed fake documents. Usually, of course, scammers try to avoid going to notary offices, because they understand what a risk it is for them. However, it happens that contacting a notary is a mandatory requirement by law. For example, when a share in an apartment is alienated, in transactions with minors or incapacitated people. Vigilant buyers often seriously insist on a visit to a notary. As practice shows, such foresight can save you from big problems in the future. After all, an apartment bought from scammers can be taken away in court. Whether the money spent on it will be returned is unknown.
Real estate is the main tangible asset for a huge number of citizens. According to experts, about 37 million real estate transactions are made in the country every year, half of which are transactions with the right of ownership. At the same time, about 90% of such contracts are concluded in a simple written form, that is, outside the control of the state. And it is in this field that all kinds of scammers are operating with enthusiasm. Elderly and lonely citizens, orphans and disabled people, people with addictions and mental illness often fall into their traps. Having taken possession of someone else’s real estate, swindlers sell it along the chain to unsuspecting citizens.
For example, in June it became known about scammers who introduced themselves as law enforcement officers and forced a 66-year-old resident of Perm to sell an apartment, take out loans and give all the money to them. They scared me that some “bad people” were walking around the city with a “general” power of attorney to dispose of her real estate, she was about to be sold, so she needed to be proactive. The scammers pulled off a similar scheme with pensioners from Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk, Novgorod, as well as with a 47-year-old woman from Yoshkar-Ola. There could be many more such examples.
If a woman turned to a notary to certify a sale and purchase transaction, they could find out that a power of attorney to dispose of real estate can only be notarized. If a person issued such a document to someone, it can always be found in the notary’s database and canceled. The Unified Information System (UIS) of a notary records information about all performed notarial acts and, in particular, about all certified powers of attorney. If such a document was not issued, it means that fraudsters intimidate a person with either a mythical power of attorney, which does not exist, or a “drawn one”, which has no legal force.
It is important that the notary always talks to all parties to the transaction, including the seller, and is able to see when a person is acting under stress or pressure. In addition, a transaction with a notary, although it does not take much time, is never done in a hurry. The notary will not rush a person to make a decision. And he will definitely take the time to answer all the questions of the participants, explain to them the legal essence and consequences of the contract. And, most importantly, the notary will make sure that the parties understand what they are doing and want exactly the consequences that the deal under discussion implies.
If it is suspected that the seller or buyer is misled, the notary refuses to perform a notarial act. If he suspects a crime, he turns to representatives of law enforcement agencies.
It happens that scammers sell real estate on behalf of the real owner, posing as a figurehead. Sometimes with fake passports swindlers come to the notary, but here they are most often in for a fiasco. An obligatory part of the work of a notary is a thorough check of all documents and information through direct requests to various departments and organizations, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs. If there is reason to believe that the applicant presented a fake passport, the notary immediately applies to law enforcement agencies. Sometimes people with fake documents are arrested right in the notary’s office. Sometimes they quickly run away. In both cases, it is possible to stop the fraudulent scheme, save citizens from losing money, their only home, time and nerves for litigation.
It happens that citizens come not with fake, but with real passports, only they are not their own. For example, criminals pick up people similar to the «original». There are also funny cases. The notary says that one day a man came to him who not only did not look like a photograph in his passport, but, judging by the date of birth in the document, was clearly very different in age from the real owner of the passport. When asked if the man had another identity document, he said that the passport did not really belong to him. Allegedly, this is a document of a brother who plans to make a deal with a notary and is now suitable. And the man just wanted to start the procedure to save everyone time. After that, he «for a minute» went out and never returned.
In addition to fake passports, scammers often use expired or fake powers of attorney. You can catch them yourself, through a free round-the-clock notary service. With its help, you can check whether a power of attorney with the specified registry number exists, and whether it has been canceled before.
At the same time, there is a separate category of fakes that are unlikely to be calculated without the participation of a notary. We are talking about the originals with «rewritten» conditions. This is when all the details and seals remain in place, but the powers of the attorney change. The content of the power of attorney is a notarial secret and is not publicly disclosed, therefore only a notary can recognize the catch — by checking the presented document with a copy located in the EIS of the notary.
There is another «pitfall». The power of attorney can be real, its term is not limited, all the «actors» and the content of the document are the same. That’s just the trustee himself — died. And scammers or unscrupulous attorneys take advantage of this — how does the buyer know that the person is no longer there? The notary has the opportunity to make a request to the registry office and find out in a timely manner that the principal has passed away. Why is this fact important? The death of a principal or attorney, as well as their loss of legal capacity or the acquisition of bankruptcy status, annuls all powers of attorney in which they urinate. That is, it is no longer possible to make transactions under such powers of attorney.
Another tidbit for attackers is inheritance cases. Fraudsters forge marriage or birth certificates to take over the apartments of dead strangers. Ex-wives are trying to hide the fact of divorce, in the hope that the deceased ex-husband did not leave a will. Some even try to fake them. However, such machinations will definitely not succeed for the instigator. All wills certified by notaries are immediately entered into a special electronic Register of Wills in the EIS. Access to the system is available only to notaries who use their enhanced qualified electronic signatures to enter. It is technically impossible to enter data into the EIS «backdating».
In addition, do not forget about such a thing as a notarial secret. Its preservation is one of the key principles of the work of a notary. Despite the fact that the notary who certified the will enters it into a single notary database, other notaries cannot see the text of this document. All data entered into the EIS is stored in the system in encrypted form. The notary addressed by the potential heir will be able to find out the contents of the will directly only upon the death of the testator, when he is presented with a death certificate and an identity document of the heir.
Among other things, the notary checks the seller’s authority, whether there are any arrests or encumbrances on property, for example, mortgages, whether the rights of third parties have been violated, whether the seller is bankrupt or an extremist. The notary can see the full information about the current and past owners of real estate, trace the chain, from whom, to whom and on the basis of what documents it was transferred.
Sometimes quite peaceful and generally law-abiding citizens become the instigators of dishonest real estate schemes. «Household» scams are rarely based on document forgery or direct threats. More often, a person simply keeps silent or tries to hide facts that are significant from a legal point of view: such as marital status or the location of the person interested in the transaction. The scale of the scheme may be small, but the consequences are still unpleasant. After all, someone’s rights are violated one way or another. And, if the transaction takes place in a simple written form, there is little chance that the secret will become clear.
The notary, in addition to various verification tools and deep legal knowledge, also has a lot of experience. He works with people every day, knows how they behave in certain situations. Reads non-verbal signs, well recognizes emotions, lies, attempts to cheat. Sometimes “internal alarms” are triggered by the way a person asks questions, sits in a chair, or pulls out documents. In addition to professional intuition, the habit of analyzing “each letter” in a document and approaching issues in a comprehensive manner helps.
As a result, the notarial form of the transaction helps to avoid many risks, but the benefits do not end there. Another important factor is the work of a notary in the «single window» mode. This means maximum comfort for the participants. The notary himself does everything: from collecting basic papers and certificates, legal expertise to a draft agreement and sending information to Rosreestr to register the transfer of ownership, which in this case is done in one working day. At the same time, the notary, by virtue of the law, bears full property responsibility for the result of the work and pays real money for each of his mistakes. Unlike all other participants in the real estate market.
source: Federal Notary Chamber
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