Preventing fraud
At Advantage Property Lawyers we are always happy to help. Below is some useful information on the preventing fraud. If you have any questions, please get in touch.
You and your property transaction are a potential target for fraud and you MUST protect yourself.
Property transactions are always a potential target for cybercrime and fraudulent activity, such as email hacking, because of the significant amounts of money involved.
How to protect yourself:
- Only ever make payments to the official Advantage Property Lawyers Ltd named account with NatWest Bank plc ending 828.
- We will NEVER notify you of a change to our bank details by phone, email or text – our bank details will not change during your transaction. Payments by bank transfer will always be made to the same account throughout.
- Check email addresses very carefully and tell us if you think you have been sent an email that is not genuine. Emails from us will be from a team email address or the individual conveyancer and use the domain name: aplawyers.co.uk.
- When you send a payment electronically, check that the account name matches. The account name will always be Advantage Property Lawyers Ltd, never anything else. If the account names do not match, do not send the payment without checking with us first.
If in any doubt, contact your conveyancer before transferring any funds!
When we will request a payment:
There are normally three payment touchpoints where you will be asked for a payment during your purchase:
Outset – When you complete and return your Starter Pack, you will be asked to make a payment for Searches. This will be a relatively small payment (under £500) and will be requested at the beginning of your purchase.
Exchange – Only once we have received the contract, received the results of searches, received satisfactory responses to enquiries and received and checked your mortgage offer (if applicable) will we be ready to exchange. At this point only, a deposit of 10% of the purchase price will need to be paid in readiness for exchange.
Completion – Just before the day on which you are to complete your purchase, we will ask you to send us any further moneys needed. We will never ask you to pay this until a completion date has been agreed and is imminent.
If Exchange and Completion are to take place on the same day, or within a few days, we may ask you just to make one payment to cover both the deposit and completion monies.
Remember…
We will NEVER ask you to make the payments to anyone other than us and will only ask you to make payments at these stages or for the reasons described above/on the previous page.
NEVER make a payment towards your property purchase other than to the official Advantage Property Lawyers Ltd named account with NatWest Bank plc ending 828.
If in any doubt, contact your conveyancer before transferring any funds!
Top tips:
If you have a related sale case with us, we may be able to use the deposit paid to us on your sale for the deposit on your purchase. If we can, we will not need to ask you to pay deposit moneys, only any balance needed to complete.
Do not send sensitive personal information, such as ID, bank statements or payment instructions, to us by email.
If you use our online client portal eWay, always use eWay to check our bank details if you are unsure of the details or amount to be sent.
Be on the lookout for minor spelling variations in email addresses, e.g.: @advantagepropertylawyers.co.uk or @aplawyers.com
Please keep this information close to hand throughout your purchase, as a reminder of how to spot the signs of fraudulent activity.
Useful contacts
Advantage Property Lawyers 0113 2207 400
National Cyber Security Centre www.ncsc.gov.uk
Action Fraud 0300 123 204 www.actionfraud.police.uk